Why we didn't use cardboard in the Music video

When we got round to the editing process we decided to scrap the cardboard idea. This is because although we created some authentic realistic looking band instruments out of cardboard, the other objects such as the toaster, lamps, mirror and food that we wanted to have turning into cardboard was did not look good on camera. This is because to create the guitars and drums we cut these objects out of cardboard with detail which took us ages. However creating a cardboard toaster and lamps were more difficult so we all came up with the idea of covering the objects in brown paper to make them look as if they were made out of cardboard, however the paper did not look good, as we had to cover the objects in Sellotape to make the brown paper stick, however this was visually unattractive and once we viewed the footage on final cut pro we decided that the objects wrapped in brown paper cheapened our music video making it look unattractive.

Account/ Evaluation of the editing

After the shoot day we began the editing process by transferring all of the footage onto the mac computers in the editing suite and onto the editing software final cut pro. We began by initially looking though all of the shots and deleting any footage which could not be used. We then labelled all of the band preformences with different colours to allow us to clearly see which shots are of the band, without having to go through every shot first. we then began by going thorough each band shot and looking at the time sequences an joining up the time frame so that the footage is in synch with the song, so that the lip synching was in time.  We then began the editing process by creating the band cut. We went through and edited the shots together so that the shot was wide then cut to a medium and then to a close up to create an entire performance cut of the band. We then continued the editing process by placing over sequences from the narrative, of shots of our male and female characters getting up out of bed and going in the bathroom to begin there daily routine. To exaggerate this we decided to show a montage of Gigi's  daily routine by jump cutting shots of Gigi messing up her hair, putting her make up on and putting her lipstick on. However after presenting this to Luke in the editing suite he suggested that jump cutting is an editing no- no and that we should change the shots so that they are interwoven with shots of the band so that the images dont jump. We then replaced some of the band shots with the narrative  of the kitchen scene. At this stage in the video our plan was to shows scenarios in the couples relationship where an argument develops and an object turns into cardboard. We had spent the previous few days creating and cutting  objects out of cardboard, we created good quality realistic looking band objects. However in order to make the more difficult objects such as a toaster and lamps, we decided to wrap an actual toaster in brown paper to look as if its cardboard,  as well as lamps and a plate. However the quality of this looked vary bad and not like cardboard at all. Our decision was made when we looked back at the footage of the cardboard objects that we were gonna scrap the whole idea of objects turning into cardboard completely and just show the couple in different argumentative situations,this still conforms to our idea of presenting het perfect life, as well as the idea of the characters being in a dolls house. Overall I think that the editing process was quite successful and in the process I learnt a lot about how to edit and my skills have improved. However If i was going to create another music video I would create one which is much more simple and i with this budget and time frame I would  not produce a video with a narrative as i think we were trying to be ambitious and we would be better off concentrating on producing a couple of  good scenes. Overall I think that the video is too band heavy, and there is not enough focus on the narrative to keep it interesting. 

The Survay

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Wonderland's website

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Research and Planning Evaluation

Evaluation of the Shoot day

On the  day before the shoot day, we arrived in the studio at 3.00 to set up the scene for our first shoot, this is because out set is big and complicated so we needed extra time to fit all the filming into the day. We began by arranging three elevated bases next to each other in the studio to create a raised effect in order to enable us to pan from one shot to the next using a crane in order to give the impression of being in a dolls house.  We then put up temporary walls around the edge of the Base, and clamped them to the sides to ensure they are stable. We then deiced that we needed to split the room into two half's, so that one room would be the bedroom and the other would be the bathroom, to enable us to pan between each room to indicate that we are in a dolls house. so we put down a wall in the centre of the room, making sure there was a gap in the wall to give the appearance of a door in the wall, making sure the gap was close was on the section of the wall closest to the camera to enable our actors to easily walk across one room to the next.  

We then started with building the set for the bedroom. we put down the carpet to create a realistic appearance of a bedroom as well as flowery wallpaper on the walls to create the look of a sickly sweet "perfect" world. we then placed a large double bed in the middle of the room and bed side tables. We then moved to building the set of the bathroom, we also but down bathroom flooring and placed a bath and a sink in the room to create a realistic looking bathroom. I woke up in the morning on Wednesday the 20th November excited about the day ahead, yet nervous about weather we would have all the correct props and neccesary equipment, my main worry was that we would not shoot everything in time as we have a very tight shooting schedule. We all (with our narrative actors, Finbar and Gigi ) at 8.30 in the morning and we distributed the relevant outfits. Whilst they were getting changed we made the final touches to the set of the bedroom and bathroom by putting down alarm clocks on the bedside as well as putting his and hers slippers either side of the bed as well as putting Francesca's yellow spotted duvet on the bed which created a very successful look helping to  maintain our star image. as well as putting a towel next to the bath and putting cosmetic products on the side in the sink to create a more realistic (perfect) room. 

Once our actors were changed we did Gigi's hair and makeup and tried o create a typical 1950s "look" by curling her hair into ringlets . We sat around and make a conscious decision about how we wanted her hair and makeup and we came to the conclusion that we wanted Gigi to wear a sparkly hairband as well as bring lipstick and rosy cheeks to create a curtsy and sickly sweet doll like appearance. We decoded that we wanted Finbr to wear combed through gelled hair to create the look of a perfect boy. Eventually I think we successfully sustained the look of our dolls house, perfect world concept that we were aiming whilst maintaining a star image. soon we were ready to start filming and we soon established our roles in the making of the video, and I personally was drawn to being involved with the visuals of set and the acting, as i personally think that thee are the key ingredients to create a rich and professional looking product. before each scene was shot, I made sure that the props were all in place, for example in the bedroom shots i made sure that the lights were turned off and the alarm clocks read the right time. 

When we began shooing my role was to call out to the actors what they had to do at the times that they had to do it and the actions they had to make, for example in the bedroom scene, i shouted to Gigi, to open her eyes, sit up, turn the light on, put her slippers on, walk out of the room etc in order to make sure she didn't forget anything as well as taking the pressure off her to learn the sequences so that she can put more energy into looking and playing the part. I also helped display the layout of the cosmetic products on the edge of the sink and filmed most of the bathroom cutaway shots. Through out the day as a whole I feel I mostly helped int he creation of the sets and overseeing the whole shoot, making sure we had the necessary shots as i feel in this shoot its very important that we don't miss any shots. After filming the bedroom and bathroom shots we then took down the set and built the kitchen and living room set. we ha some trouble in sourcing a kitchen, we initially decided that a kitchen would be too difficult to create as we dot have a cooker or kitchen work tops to use as a set, as a result we walked around the school and asked members of staff if we would be able to use the kitchen to film the set. However we could not find a kitchen appropriate so we deiced to do our best to create a kitchen in the studio as we decided that then we would be able to pan across from the kitchen to the living room as we initially decided. It would also be in keeping with our theme and combine well with the living room and bedroom set better if we crated it in the studio. we eventually found a camping stove which we deiced to put on top of a work surface to give the appearance that we are in a kitchen.

 This, as well as the fact that we were rushed for time so we didn't have enough time to film all of out intended shots, where the main problems of the day. In the end we had to come up with alternative shots on the spot. for example we planned on filming eating bacon and eggs and then filming up the shots to show a seeded up montage of the food on the plate disappearing however at 5oclock, with one hour of filming left we decided that our time would be better spent filming shots that would take up more time. Overall I think that if we were going to film this shoot again i would take time management more into consideration as i think that our plans are too advanced for our short time frame. However I do think that we managed our actors very well and our actors in the narrative particularly looked perfect for the shoot and perfectly conformed with the star image we were creating, and the bit i most enjoyed was definitely working out the visuals of the videos and making condos decisions about the set and the clothing, hair and makeup of the actors in the narrative. I am very much looking froward to looking at the narrative shots and compiling them together to show the story int he editing process. I also feel that my grouped worked really well as a team and we soon established our individual roles to play in order to create hopefully a very successful professional looking music video.

Here are some more images from the shoot day:

Risk Assesment

Shooting Schedule

Shooting schedule 1 from Francescasummers

Call List

Call list from Francescasummers

Research into Genre

Simple advert with roses

Here is the Simple face wipes advert from Febuary 2011 which inspired us to use roses for our CD front cover, showing roses being covered up using black and red ink, conforming with our message that the perfect world is being covered up.

CD Cover Ideas

CD cover ideas for Wonderland

clothing for the band.ppt

Permissions to use Locations

We are filming all of our music video in the Studio, including the band preformences, and the dolls house sets so because of this, we dont need to ask anyone for permission to shoot. We also dont have any special set requirements, we are building our own set and will supply most of the props, including the dolls house.

Casting: the Band

Our Band Name

Shooting Schedule

8:30-9:45= Bedroom Shots (Narrative)

BREAK- MOVE SET

10:00-11:00= Bathroom Shots (Narrative)

BREAK- MOVE SET

11:15-12:30= Living Room Shots (Narrative)

LUNCH BREAK- MOVE SET

1:15-3:00= Kitchen Shots (Narrative)

BREAK- MOVE SET

3:15-4:00= Band Setting Up (Performance)

BREAK

4:15- 5:30= Band Performing (Performance)

BREAK

5:45- 6:20= Band with Dolls House (Performance)

FINISH

Clothing in the Narritive

Clothing for Mardybum Music Video by annabelhales

Similar Bands

Props List

Storyboard Animatics and evaluation

We edited our storyboard together using the software Final Cut Pro to produce the animatics for our music video. Animatics are extremely useful to have when it comes to producing the music video, it visually shows us what it is going to look like and helps us to see if we need to change any shot choices to help us to achieve exactly what we need when it comes to the actual shoot, as well as reminding us how to use final cut pro and how to cut the clips to music successfully.

I think our animatics were very successful, we have cut the storyboard in relation to the beat of the song whilst using range of different shot lengths to keep the pace going and keep the viewers interest.

Creating the animatic ensures that we have enough shots to fit the song, I was worried that we would not have enough however by creating the animatic it made me realise that the amount of shots that we have produced is perfect.

The only weakness of our animatic is that some of the drawings were not done to the highest standard however I dont think this really matters, just to get the overall perspective of what the video will look like. I think that we will more or  use this animatic as a guideline when producing our storyboard and will try to use all these elements when producing our music video.

I think the narrative represents the star image quite well, it is presented in an alternative Indie style as the music video will feature a confusing "perfect world" which is falling apart, using surreal looking dolls and interesting quirky sequences, which I think would appeal to our "alternative" target audience. I also think we have constructed our band to reflect our star image very well.

Set Design

Today, we had a meeting with Scott, The set designer. We proposed our plans to him and showed him our set design drawings for him to tell us weather our ideas are possible to create, as well as getting some advice as to how we could make our designs better, and to here his opinions on our plans.

First we showed Scott the drawings we produced of the overall view of the dolls house (above) Which we created as it clearly shows us what the layout of the house looks like and what rooms are where During this meeting Scott suggested that instead of filming the band in the school basement/ hallway (that we originally intended) it would be better if we shot it in the studio and created a set for it. This is because the shape of the basement in my dolls house is quite wide whilst the corridor we were thinking of is very long and thin. Filming in the studio also allows us to control the lighting much easier.

The set designer also suggested that we put the sets of two rooms next to each other in the studio enable us to achieve the right perspective of a dolls house. as well as making it more practical and convenient as our plans are to film the actors in one room and then pan across horizontally to a different situation in another room. We are planning on filming in a similar style to one of the music videos created by Hurtwood last year called Anti love song, in this video they also show panning from one room to the next.



Scott  also suggested that we put both rooms on stilts so that we can pan downwards from the bathroom to the basement for the band performance.

Scott also suggested that we use dark lighting in the room, in order to juxtapose our idea or "the perfect world" to create a more moody almost gothic atmosphere, As it will make our finished product of the dolls house look more realistic, as well as linking with the household objects turning into cardboard and the couple fighting

Male Cast

These are the people we have in mind to play the men.

Will Van Der Wayden

If Will is unavailable, we'll use Fin because he has brown hair and is also good looking. He's taller than the female actors, is of a similar build to Will and is also easy-going

Female Cast

These are the girls we have in mind to play the women in our video

Leila Toulmin

We chose Leila because she's blonde and classically beautiful as well as being petite and a talented actor

 Gigi Rice

 If Leila is unavailable, we will use Gigi in our video as she also has blonde hair, has classic beauty, is petite and a talented actor.

Evaluating My Storyboard by annabelhales

Letter to record company asking for permission

To Domino record company,

We are a group of A Level students working on an A Level project for a qualification in Media Studies. We are writing to request permission to use the following track ‘Mardy Bum’ by the Artic Monkeys.

With your permission the track ‘Mardy Bum’ would be used as the accompaniment to a short form video that is made purely for assessment purposes and will have no commercial usage. The video will be viewed only by members of the school community and the assessor of the examination board.

The artist and the copyright holder will of course be fully recognised in the pre-production and evaluation material that accompanies the project. We can also include a full copyright notice if required both in the planning material and on the video itself.

Yours sincerely

Annabel Hales
Hurtwood House School

Our Band Name

We have decided to call our band name "wonderland" as we think that it fits in with the theme of an ideal perfect world which corrosponds to the message that we are trying to portray in our music video, that everyone ants to be in their ideal "wonderland" but in reality this doesn't exist. 

STORYBOARD

Editing our storyboard

We used the footage that we took of the storyboards in the previous lesson to create a sequence, which we will put to the music to show what our music video will look like. We used the program "final cut pro" on the mac computers to edit the sequence. Firstly we uploaded the shots that we took the previous day and copied them into final cut pro. Then we organised out sequences into different categories by putting them into different log bins, for example we put the bands in one bin. This enable us to find the sequences that we wanted more easily. Then we inserted the track onto Final cut pro and listened to the track. Then we went through the track for a second time and found the areas which stood out to us from the beat and highlighted them with a red marker.  Then we cut the sequences according to the beat of the music. Our plan was to Place the shots in order onto the cutting area however as we began to do this we decided that we didn't have enouf footage of the band playing (as they are the star image that will sell their track)  so we changed the sequences around and found areas where it would be appropriate to put the band in instead of narrative.

Filming the storyboard

During a lesson, Francesca and I filmed the Animatic for our storyboard. We went into the studio and set up a tripod and set the camera up. We then white balanced the camera, focussed it and zoomed in on each individual drawn picture. We filmed each picture for 5seconds each so that we can cut the shots together in the editing suite. We have 89 shots in total which we plan to cut together as we will for the real thing.

Examples of props we will use when the furniture turns to cardboard

Target Audiences

Our target audience would primarily be young males, of around 17-23. I don't think that the song would appeal to anyone of a younger age they probably wouldn't understand the strong morals that the song is trying to convey. Our target audience has to be of an age where they have experienced the ups and downs of relationships. I also think that the rough masculine tone of the song would primarily appeal to men rather than women. Geographically, I think the song would appeal to a primarily British or North American audience or countries in the western world and English

speaking nations, due to its typically British style. I think my typical target audience would be of an lower to middle class and have a lifestyle where they go to festivals, concerts and enjoy socialising, partying and going out with friends, possibly a student, they like to feel that the music they listen to is different and not mainstream.  I think that our typical target audience member would be either C,D or E on the JICNAR scale, as the majority of the fans would be students or unemployed. I think that the majority of our target audiences would be innovators, groupies or rebels, they are people who what to be different, yet want to be accepted in their own group at the same time.

Our secondary target audience is very different from our primary target audience, as the song is a similar classic rock style of songs from the 70s and 80s. So our secondary target audience would be males aged 40-60. Their geographical distribution would also be primarily western and British and we think that parents and fathers would make up the majority of this audience, as children may introduce music to their parents, Therefore the audience are people who are likely to have good relationships with their children. They may also come across our bands at festival or through internet searches looking for rock music, as our band have a similar classic rock style. I think that our secondary target audience would also be of a low to middle class and would range from D to B on the JICNAR scale, I think that there lifestyle would consist of going to pubs, bars, original festivals eg Glastonbry.

Storyboarding

Below is a youtube clip that was shown to us in one of our media lessons. It consists of a step to step guide and some tips of how to produce a storyboard and why we should create them.

After watching this video we came across the website www.storyboardthat.com showing us an alternative way of producing a storyboard, though an internet program which enables you to virtually create a storyboard. We decided that we would use this method as it enables us to change an aspect of storyboard at a later date, if we decide to change certain elements, we also thaught that this method would create a much clearer storyboard clearly showing our intentions. Below is an example of a "storyboardthat"storyboard.

IFHY - Tyler, The Creator

The Video below, IFHY, by Tyler the creator is also set in a Dolls House. They have used a similar style of interior that we would like use in our video. They have used similar pastel, doll like colours that we wanted. The dolls house also uses that same layout, of four rooms, one bedroom, one bathroom a kitchen and a dining room, and we see shots of the house as a whole, presented in a similar style that we want to create (oppersite)

Storyboarding

Styling

Our idea for the music video is that we see a family of four in a perfect house and throughout we see them becoming more and more fake until the parts of the house begin to turn into cardboard, for example they will be having a drink and the cup will turn into cardboard untill the end when the people themselves turn into cardboard, and then we zoom out to see that they are in a dolls house, and possibly the house itself turns into cardboard.

Here is some examples of cardboard objects we would like to include in our music video.

 Here are the dolls that i have at home that I think we could use as they are wooden and very fake creating the atmosphere we would like to make, as well as wooden furniture which i think we could possibly use as well as or instead of the cardboard objects.

MARDY BUM ARCTIC MONEYS TREATMENT

Mardy Bum Presentation

Mardy Bum - Initial concept

After sitting down in our group and brainstorming about our initial ideas, we quickly decided from the Lyrics that we wanted the main narrative to be about a couple in a relationship, who have a hot/cold relationship. We thought that we could have a couple in a room arguing and then we pan across to a different room and they are happy again. After watching the video "Bleeding Love" by Leona lewis, we decided to film different rooms, with different situations going on in each and the narrator can walk between each for example like a film show/ studio effect where we could pan up and down from one room to the next. Then we thaught about possibly filming a dolls house and posting in the rooms later in after effects. We were also thinking about wht style we wanted the overall video to posess, we thaught about the music video for "gives you hell"by all america rejects which was one of our previous music video ideas and we decided that we wanted to use a similar style and interior that they use, to enhance the perfect and sickly sweet lifestle they have.