Filming Diary

Saturday  7^th  January

• Our artist was unable to come to the shoot as she had a Saturday revision class.

Wednesday 11^th January

• After school today we took pictures of our artists so that we could do our construction and be able to explain what costume they will be wearing and how their hair and make- up will be.
• We also practised video-in-video, Haddi directed Ria and Moses, she asked them to sit on the playground bench and hold a frame for 10seconds, then start acting. Haddi explained exactly what she wanted them to do. We didn't want the picture to look too posed as it wouldn't look natural. 

Friday 13^th January

• Unfortunately we were unable to film today as Ria and Moses had school commitments they had to attend to.

Saturday 14^th January

• Today we went out filming today, because we had issues with finding a room to film, we didn't want to waste another day of not filming. We had to tweak our storyboard and make a few changes, we decided to change it to where Ria would be waiting for Moses outside a restaurant, where she gets a text saying that he wont be able to make it. We had ria sitting by a water fountain and outside a restaurant where she looked disappointed and let down once again because he had cancelled on her.
• Issues we faced when filming: because it gets dark really quickly, we had to work at a faster pace in order to have got this section done. There were continuity issues as we were in Canary Wharf and it is a busy area, so if we were unable with the footage we had to go out and film it again.

Thursday 19th January

• Today we focused on the middle of the music video, where Ria was mainly in the bedroom, going through a memory box from the things Moses had given her. We used a range of camera shots, so that the camera wasn't placed in one shot and there was more of a variety. 
• Issues we faced when filming: unfortunately, our artist still hadn't learnt the lyrics of the song, she is currently in year11 and hasn't had time to do do. So the boost her confidence we were singing along with her and Idowu had her phone connected to speakers so we could listen to the song and to make sure the lip syncing was accurate. 

Friday 20th January

• Today we will be focusing on the beginning of the song, where Ria is preparing a meal for Moses as it is his birthday. She has gone through all this effort to find out that he's out shopping with another girl.
• Issues we faced when filming: the actor was being uncooperative as it was late and we had been filming till late the previous night.

Friday 27th January

• Today, will hopefully be last day of filming, we have little bits which we need to include, and tweak a few things. We have decided to had a spotlight scene, where Ria is singing to the camera, we thought this would be effective as we haven't really covered the notion of looking.
• Issues we faced when filming:
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• Wednesday 1st February 2012
• Today we reviewed all our footage and found that it followed little conventions of an RNB  female video. se we Re filmed the middle in a more dressed up bedroom with silk red sheets.
• Issue we faced when filming:We had little issue faced whilst filming the new and improved bedroom scene  as we had planned prior to us filming.  

Wednesday 15 February 2012 
Today we lost all our footage due to our memory card being damaged. we will be filming tomorrow throughout the weekend. so we can still film within our deadline. 


Sunday 19 February
We have so finished filming the beginning narrative including the dinner scene and the middle the bedroom scene. all that left to do is the filming of the ending narrative and addition lip syncs.


Wednesday 14 March 2012  
We have finish filming our music videos however we are now editing our footage, we also working on our print task. Below is examples of how we improved our footage... 

Video 1

This video show how we developed our opening scene further. Previously we panned up on our artist, but in our improved footage we intexualised with Keyisha Cole video. 

• Improving mis-en-scene is evidently in the video, she is wearing  a seductive dress and her hair is braided to the side and dyed red. 
• the location is has also change we used blue and red satin sheets to create a glamour's and sexy bedroom. 

Video 2

As a group we had to be supportive of our artist so we sang along with her.  

•  The camera angle has changed 
• we have chosen to put red lipstick on our artist as it is a common convention of RnB females video
• We have used a different background. 

Video 3

whilst looking at our footage we found that their wasn't enough shots that showed our artist looking glamourous and seductive. We re filmed this bit i particular and was a success. her red lipstick really pops. 

History of Music Videos

Music videos was first introduced in a form of a 3 minute musical film, which often include short dance sequences. In the 1970s Top of the Pop started using music video experimentally. In 1981 the creation of MTV a 24 hour music video channel had paid for different music videos to be showed, MTV now have specific channels in accordance to different audience. i.e. MTV Dance.

Key Historical Moments

Some iconic moments of music was The Beetle video Strawberry Fields which at the time called a promotional film. As The Beetle was one of the first bands to create such a phenomon as they became one of the first bands to make a success of the time and still now.

http://youtu.be/S7uBrx5aJ20

1940- Walt disney,released Fantasia an animated film based fim based around famous of classical music.

http://youtu.be/XChxLGnIwCU

Queens "Bohemian Rhapsody"  also started a whole era for using music videos as promos.

http://youtu.be/fJ9rUzIMcZQ

St Louis Blues - Bessie Smith (1929

Showed in theatres till1932

http://youtu.be/8Who6fTHJ34

Preparation Practical Tasks

To prepare for making the music video we have done various practical exercises to learn the fundamental elements of Music Video making


EDITING to the beat and variation of shots- The Animal Music Video by Amena- Devine 

We were given a range of camera footage and asked to make a music video using final cut. I’ve never used final cut before so I thought it would be hard but to my surprise I had a lot of fun. 

Mastering final cut for me was very easy and there was a lot of shortcuts that I used e.g. to cut camera footage you can press ‘B’ as a blade tool and to use the arrow tool you press ‘A’. The precised blade tool allows you to cut the footage exactly where you want to and if you do happen to make a mistake you have the safety of knowing that the full clip is still stored in the library on the programme and on the actual timeline if you just drag and extend the end of the clip. There are different segments on the timeline which means you can edit more than one clip at a time with less clutter and confusion, this helped a lot as I was able to edit the video twice as fast as I did when we did the Busted swede. 

When you are editing, sometimes the clips are too small to cut it precisely at the point you want, however, with this software it contains a precision editor so you can make the clips larger just so you can see what you are doing. It shows you exactly what your cutting bringing up the unused and used footage of that specific clip. If you want, you can even bring it up on both screens of the final cut just to be sure and to see it properly, if one isn’t enough. The library sorts out all clips into alphabetical order which allows your footage to be organised and so you don’t lose anything. You can also put all the special effects onto your clips with Final cut which means we don’t need to worry about special effects when shooting our footage for our media music video. It was hard matching the music with the visuals. 

This music video was an upbeat song which meant a lot of footage cuts so it looked as good as it sounded. Editing this video made me see how hard it is just to make a music video let alone filming one. There is so much you have to consider, from the relationship between lyrics and visuals to the genre characteristics to the different ways to promote/sell the artists. Another thing I learnt with this task was having more camera footage than you need is better than not having enough camera footage as the music video I made only lasted 1 minute 30 seconds. 

The storyboard also contributes to being organised for your music video as if you plan and have an accurate storyboard you will get all your footage you plan to have. There were a various amount of camera shots in the camera footage: Extreme close ups. Close ups, two-shots, low and high angle shots and establishing shots. Using a range of shots made this video look much better and it wasn’t boring as there were different shots that came up on the screen every 5-8 seconds. This made me see that making and editing a music video will be hard but it is going to be a fun challenge! We just have to be very organised, have a clear storyboard and work as a team and also consider Andrew Goodwins theory on the aspects of our music video.  

PLANNING in detail and working with large groups
Busted Swede by Idowu Kukoyi 
Whilst filming the 'Busted' swede as group, many issues came about. Organisation was the major issues, shoots were not organised well enough and our actors were unaware on what to do. Casting was not done effectively as people who were assigned to be the main group were not up for it.  If we were to film the Busted swede again I would plan effectively, story board idea week before filming, cast actors who would be willing to perform in our video. From this it is important that their is someone to control and overseas the filming, as whilst filming people became restless, which made the pace in which we were filming slower. Lastly a portable music player that is loud enough for the crew to hear. This experience has given me a greater understanding of being organised and casting the right people, which I hope will contribute to the making of our music video. 

FILMING and EDITING Creativity and lip syncing
ABC Video by Haddi Jallow 

We were split into three groups for the filming of ABC, every group was designated a part from the song, in which they had to be creative and come up with something that wasn't in the actual music video. I learnt the importance of lip syncing and you cannot just mime the words, but you do actually have to sing it otherwise there is no emphasis. Editing the lip syncing was quite difficult, because there were times when the music was faster than the person actually singing, and it did look quite messy. Filming the video was quite difficult as well, because shoots weren't organised and not everyone knew what to do. Not having a storyboard at shoots can be very difficult, because it is difficult to explain to the actors what you want them to be doing and what. Filming and editing the ABC video has made me aware of how difficult it is to make a music video, it has taught me that organisation and communication are a key skill in succesfully producing a music video, as well as, turning up to shoots with the actual storyboard.