Planning for the half-term shoot

In this lesson we decided to go through our production to see what we could improve over half-term. We sat down with our teacher and decided on what worked and what didn't the picture below is what we have decided to change/edit.

The picture below is the production sheet which we also did during Friday's lesson

First Cut

Shooting the Forgotten Shot

When we did our main filming we had forgotten the film one shot, at night with the camera looking at the house with the lights on. So I took a camera and tripod home on Fridays lesson (19th October), I then filmed the missing shot. We also made a production schedule for this in the lesson.

Editing - Learning How to do a New Techinique

During our editing we came across a problem, we didn't know how to make the 'happy' scenes look like a memory of the past. So we started to play around with the different video effects. We first decided to change the colour of the video, this was easier said than done as we couldn't figure out how to do it, we went through the colour change options and when that didn't work we tried channel mixer but that didn't work either. Eventually we came across the tint option, at first we were unsure whether or not to use it.
We decided to use it and just play around with the options, we chose the tint colour to be orange and at first it was way to bright, so we went to the amount to tint option and changed it to 51%, this allowed the video to have a soft orange glow, making it seem more dream like. We then came across a video option called roughen edges, after seeing what this could do we decided to use it as it gave the video a burnt out look, like that of an old film on a film reel. The screenshot below shows what the video looked like before (left) we edited and after (right) we edited.

Print Screens of Editing

These are the print screens  of our editing we have been doing, the first image shows that wehave been converting them the black and white. The second shows what we have done with the green scree, whereas the third shows us putting together the fighting scene in the instrumental.

 

Editing 10th October

We started editing the videos we filmed on Sunday on the Wednesdays lesson. We had to convert the videos we filmed on Bethan's camera as they were in the wrong format. Once we had done this, we uploaded all the vidoes into Premier. Bethan had to help the boys with their filming as she was the only one who knew how to work the lights in the school hall so I was left to edit alone. I managed to get the first verse done, I took my time with the editing as I wanted it to look really good. I thought that the scene with the water on the window wasn't going to look that good as the top right hand corner had no water on it however once I converted it into black and white it appeared to mostly white so you couldn't tell there wasn't any water reaching it. I had to speed up some of the videos as they were taking to long and went over the designated time we had allowed for each scene. I also used the green screen video for part of the verse, I put the sunset behind it. To get rid of the green screen heind Bethan I used the chroma key to edit out the green colour, I then put the sunset video behind it. However Bethan was then behind the sunset so I had to switch there places on the editing line. The sunset was sped up alot to make the time lapse quicker, I also had to play it in rewind because we hadn't had a good enough sunset due to bad weather.

Stylistic Influences - Pink

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSjIz8oQuko

 

Pink's song Family Portrait reflects our production both in the lyrics and in the video as it is all about a broken family. In the video we see the child lip-syncing which is the same as what we have done as we have Libby lip-syncing. In Pink's video we can see that they have the happy family scenes (frame 9 below) which is also what we plan to have in our video. It also has the same type of colour scheme as ours except in the 'bad times' in our video its black and white and during the 'happy times' its a diluted version of colours.

 

 

In Pink's video, Pink and the girl are the same person, this is to get across the point that she was alone through her family's breakup making it more dramatic and lonely whereas in ours the sisters have each other.

 

 

 

This clearly shows that the girl was alone and that the only way she could have fun was to play by herself, unlike ours where the younger sister has the older sister. To get across that they are the same person they are wearing the same outfit, and the same kind of hairstyle.

Country Music Style - Colbie Caillat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU5o6M7S5nQ

 

Colbie Caillat's song Brighter than the Sun reflect Taylor Swifts style and is in the same genre as Taylor Swift, but it also features some of the things we want to include in our video. Caillat does what Taylor Swift does in her videos, and what we intend to do with ours. She has split the video into her lip-syncing and being part of the video, which is what we are doing in ours. There is also a main theme in Caillat's video which is of nature, she builds a room made of grass and appears in tropicalesque places (frame 9 below). We also have a main theme in our production which is the happy ever after (which is also featured in Caillat's lyrics).

 

I particularly like the framing of the whole video especially when Caillat is framed infront of the sunflowers, which helps reflect the idea of being brighter than the sun as sunflowers are supposed to reflect the sun and appear in summer.

 

 

There is also a shot of her on a swing where only she is in focus and the background is blurred, this allows the audiences attention to be focussed solely on her and the lyrics. She also appears to be very happy and carefree which reflects the lyrics. This shot is also like what we tried to do in ours as this is what we wanted for when the parents are fighting but we were unable to do it as the camera just blurred out everything.

 

Sundays Filming

On Sunday (7th October) we started filming our production. We encountered some problems during filming as it was very hard to get Libby's reflection during the raining window scene so we had to film Libby framed to the left of the frame whilst in front of the window which had water falling in front of it from the hosepipe. Also we couldn't do the focus shift between the parents arguing and the children watching because the camera just blurred everything in the frame. We also decided to not film the scenes at the train station because we couldn't make it down to the station instead we chose to have the sisters driving away in a car. We asked Libby's dad to drive Beth and Libby down the road so it would seem like they are being taken away by social services.

Start Of Production

We will be starting our production soon so these are the tasks and roles for the participants.
Roles and Tasks:
Nicola - Camerawoman and in charge of all the props such as the teddy bear.
Bethan - Actor and bringing the running away bag.

The Book Idea

 

We decided to use a book in our production, this will be shown by Bethan reading to Libby in the bedroom. We thought that we could edit the cover of the book we will use to say 'Safe and Sound' in 'Disney' style writing as we want to created a fairy-tale type feel where the sisters are safe. Bethan then came up with the idea that at the end of our video we sould have the book again however it will say 'happily ever after', and then the book will close, whilst very cliche, we think it will work in our production. An example of the font we will use is below.

 

 

Green Screening

We decided on the Wednesday (3rd Oct) that we would green screen Bethan lip-syncing the whole song. We decided it would be best to film this in the new building of our school as the classrooms have no furniture in, so we would be free to move around and set up the green screen wherever we wanted to. Bethan had brought a spare t-shirt to change into so it would coincide with the colour scheme of our production. Whilst I recorded Bethan lip-syncing we decided that it would be best to play the song whilst Bethan lip-synced, so we set up Bethan's laptop. Playing the song helped Bethan to keep up with the pace and tone, it also made the lip-syncing look more real.

Actors

These are our actors who will be appearing in the music video.

This is Bethan, she will be playing the older sister who looks after the little sister, whereas I will be behind the camera filming.

This is Karen who will be playing the arguing mother, who will argue with the dad (Joe).

This is Libby who will play the younger sister, we chose to have Bethan play the older sister because she and Libby look similar whereas I don't look anything like Libby.

This is Joe who will be playing the arguing dad, who helps towards making the sisters run away.

Location Shots

These are the location shots where we plan on shooting the music video. The first picture is of the driveway where we will see the sisters leaving, the second picture is also where we see the sisters walking off towards their happily ever after. The third picture is of the garden which will be featured when we see the dad drinking and the garden start to decay. The fourth picture is the bedroom where the sisters will hide out from the aruging which will be done in the living room which is featured in the last picture.

Costume Style

So we stay within our black and white/saturated colour scheme the actors will be dressed in dark clothing, however for the happy scenes the actors  will be dressed brightly to portray the mood of the scene. We will have to edit the colour of the clothing during the happy scenes so the colour becomes saturated. We will be focussing more on Beth and Libby's outfits as they are the focus of the story for the music video.
The images below show what we have in mind for their outfits. Bethan will be dressed in black jeans/trousers and a black t-shirt for the sad/arguing times of the video, Beth will also have her hair up in a ponytail as this will convey her seriousness and her mother-like role with Libby .
Libby will be wearing white skirt/jeans and a white t-shirt, this is to contrast Bethan and also the colour white has many connotations the main one being innocent, she will also have her hair in two plaits as this will also help convey the fact that she is an innocent child.
For the happier scenes of the video Bethan will be wearing light blue jeans and an orange top whereas Libby will be wearing a summer dress this is to convey the mood that they are happy and that things between the family havent broken down yet, both of them will be having their hair down to contrast the way they have it in the darker times so it will get across the point that they are carefree at this moment in time.

 

Bethan Sad Outfit

 

Bethan Happy Outfit

 

 

Libby Sad Outfit

 

 Libby Happy Outfit