Storyboarding

Today, Richard and I started the storyboarding for the chase scene, we planned the first shot and discussed ideas for the rest of the video. Soon we will be filming the shots of the singer singing the words, only two members need to be there to film. Once that is finished we can move straight on towards filming the chase scene, and once that's completed, the filming's finished.

What we need to do before filming

All we need to do before we can go ahead with filming, is complete the final draft of the storyboard and decide on costumes.

We have a vague idea of what we want for both of these issues, so it is now just a case of finalizing everything so we are 100% sure and know exactly what we are doing when it comes to filming.

Final Plot

3 characters meet in location (to be decided) all receive texts . As they all take their separate routes. There are cuts back and forth from the singer, who, differently to the other members of the band, is waking up, and taking it slow. This is what happens until the guitar solo, when the singer then sees the briefcase in the swimming pool in his back garden and starts to become more suspicious. He goes outside to see it, and turns around, then to see the other 3 members hurtling down the road towards his house. The cuts between the 3 members and the singer will become more and more frequent the nearer they all get to each other. Eventually, the singer breaks away from his "chilled" exterior and gets in on the action by turning round and storming towards to swimming pool. All 4 members of the band then throw themselves, mid-air into the pool, and the video just cuts out before they all hit the water.

We feel that the contrast between the fast paced action from the instrumentalists and the slow, step-by-step morning routine from the singer will be effective and also not to difficult to capture. When it comes to editing, we can really bring the pace to a halt when it cuts to the singer through quick transitions and different lighting techniques in the filming.

In our music video i am going to be one of the characters who is running for the briefcase, i think it will be a good idea if my my characters actions contrast with the way he looks, as i am going to be wearing a suit i think it will be very effective if my character does things like jumping over fences, sliding down hills etc i also think it will be a good idea if my character uses a push bike as his main method of transport, i feel the scene where charlie is in his tractor going along a field will be very entertaining if i cycle past him in my suit looking very rough and determined to get the briefcase. i think that a my character should see someone on a bike then steal it from him, this will be very effective.

i think that Toms character should be very down to earth and smart looking as he will be the one who ends up with the contents of the briefcase.

i think that charlies character should be quite funny and crazy as he is going to be driving through a field on his tractor i think this will be very entertaining.

i think that richards character could be cool and stylish as he is going to be using everyday transport such as trains and cars to get to the briefcase.

Simplifying

In class today, Charlie, Richard and I discussed possible happenings in the video. We decided that we didn't want it to have such a step-by-step feel to it, for instance, if a man was to take something out of a bag and then hide the empty bag, we wouldn't want it to come across as:

1) Man sees bag

2) Man opens bag

3) Man takes what's in the bag

4) Man closes bag

5) Man hides bag

We felt that if we were to use intriguing camera angles and technical editing, we could simplify the whole process whilst allowing more to happen, and even though we'd be using less shots, it may actually make it more interesting for the audience. Take this example for instance, we would much rather it be:

1) Man sees bag

2) (shot from behind the bag) Man looks surprised when bag is open

3) (shot from behind the man) Man walks away carrying something

4) In another shot of another character, audience notice bag in the background.

In our opinions this would be much more effective, also it would show that we are being intelligent with our filming, and that a lot of planning did happen before filming.

Ideas for Storyboarding

This lesson we have looked at many different videos to get ideas for our storyboard;

- Vampire Weekend, Oxford Comma: From this video we gained ideas about what to have going on in the video, from the video we have been been influenced to have many things going on in the background, we feel this will add to the video and make it repeatable.

- Beck, Odelay: This video was used as a preference because it is very much the style that we want to achieve; for example having very random goings on in the background and the video seemed very clever and cutting edge.

- Blink 182, All the Small Things: This video works on the basis of intertextuality making it very humorous - we like this video because it brought comedy into the music and we would like to add comedy into our video. We also liked the weirdness of the very random 'What's my age again' video by blink 182 which also showed signs of intertextuality.  With this music video we alo learned techniques of camera angles, for example the running round the corner shot shown at the top of the post.

The last video we looked at was by Chikinki, Assassinator 13; We like this video very much as it uses a range of weird clips and many different costumes on one person. Watching the video you realise how long it would have taken to make therefore you watch the video and appreciate it.

Costumes

Our original idea for the video was for us to all be wearing suits, we watched the vampire weekends video for 'Oxford comma' and we noticed that two of the band members are wearing suits in the video which we thought looked very effective. i have managed to find an old suit that i can use in the video, i think this will be very effective for the end of the video with the swimming pool scene. this also means that not all of us will have to have a suit, as each person will be wearing something that goes with their style in the video.

Linking the song to the video

At the beginning of the song, there is an eight bar intro. Seeing as there will be four main characters within the video, the introduction of each character can last for 2 bars. It was an idea within the group that one or two of the characters were to wear suits in the video, so it would be almost comedic in a sense if two characters turned up casually dressed and were acting quite relaxed, and the other two turned up, power dressed, to the maximum. In the 8th bar, there are hits on an open hi-hat and then a syncopated snare hit on the 3.5th beat of the bar. I think it would seem quite effective and technical if the 3.5 beats in the song were all snap shots of one of the characters, rather than a moving image. It would be most pleasing if the character we use for this is one wearing a suit.

The verse first consists of two musical phrases, with two lines to each phrase. I think it would be more simple and effective when it comes to editing if each character was to be shown for technically an equal amount of time, meaning that here they would take a line each. The first phrase is one vocal line repeated, but when it is repeated, it is harmonised. One of the ideas that we had in the group was the we could attempt a split-screen, and have an extra character appear on each harmony. If this becomes to complicated to do on Final Cut Express, another method we could use is having one character running down a road, and then when each harmony comes in, another character appears and starts running along beside them.

When the chorus comes in, the music is a lot more energetic, there is loud thrashing drums and backing vocals. Since the beginning of the song, the first chorus would be considered as the most important section therefore I think it would be good if here, all the four characters (each taking their own individual courses within the chase) were all to 'collide' in a small area and all be momentarily confused. After the chorus there is a quiet bridge passage before the next verse comes in. It would be quite good if here, one of the characters were to show their fatigue, and then once the verse comes back in, the chase is back on!

After the verse, chorus and bridge the second time round, there is a chilled guitar solo. I think here it would be quite interesting, if another character emerges into the video, and stumbles upon the object that the initial four were racing for. This character would just come across as a random teenage, complete with headphones, skateboard and backpack. I feel that if this character was to then open the briefcase, take what's inside it (the name of the song gives you a clue what this could be) and put it in his bag. He could then go and dispose of the empty briefcase (which could be where we had previously discussed... In a swimming pool). Once he turns back around, the characters could rush past him, one of them actually then borrowing his skateboard, and they could all jump into the pool, where the camera just freezes on them in mid-air, which is where the video ends.

The song ends on a long, harmonised note. The long note will be suit the freeze frame perfectly, and the fact that it's harmonised could also represent the fact that all of the characters are present when jumping into the pool.

Learning the song

Today the three of listened carefully to the song that we are going to use (Money by Yellow Garage). We took notice of key lyrics, timing within the rhythm and also the use of instrumentation. There are some sections where the drum beat is off-beat and unexpected, these would be great times for quick cuts and modern transitions to maintain the variety and franticness within the video.

We were also thinking of maybe incorporating split screens and tone editing such as having some of the shots in black and white. 

What we need to do as soon as possible is post a copy of the lyrics onto the blog and then also a detailed analysis of where we could change shots and how we would. We also need to finally decide the routes being taken by each member of the band to get to the destination that they are racing for.

Props

I discovered some weird props that would be brilliant if we could use into our video.
I found things like old cars, varied pots and tubs, a mandolin, some camouflage netting and a ride-on lawnmower.

We have permission to use all of these things if we want to as well as anything else we can find as long as we leave the location how we found it.

We want to use random and weird props like in the video 'Oxford Comma' by Vampire Weekend.

Location

i have taken some photos of our desired location for part of our music video as well as its surroundings which i thought would be good settings for the pursuit in our video.

They will be uploaded ASAP. I would have done it last night but unfortunatley my computer crashed at home and is being sorted out today.