on Before moving onto our second attempt at a narrative shoot we put together a plan document as to how we want to approach this
There was however a slight change to this plan at the last minute as we were unable to access my shed for the day, this however was easily amended as we rescheduled and booked a school white studio instead, keeping everything else the same.
on Overall we reflected the following of this second shoot:
However we still found a decent amount of the footage below our standard of quality that we want for the video:
on Next shoot we wanted to try was to get some content from a performance shoot, we planned to do this in the drama studio to make use of the coloured lighting and black background, to give the impression of the singer in a sort of void. In preparation for this I made some small thumbnail sketches to try and have a better plan before going into the shoot as we didn’t do this last time.
With this help and organisation, we were able to decide on simpler clearer aims for this shoot, we had a mimimum shot list from these sketches and from there could direct our model much more
on After our first shoot we were able to reflect on and form a better idea of how we should approach tasks like this in the future. Whilst this was a helpful experience to recognise our own skills in filming, directing and cinematography we eventually decided that this shoot didn’t achieve enough good footage for us to use in our project.
Overall, we recognised the areas that we did well;
However this was eventually outweighed as we reflected on the shoot and concluded that
on Before our first shoot we also made sure to fill out this production meeting agenda to have a clear idea of what we wanted/needed going into it;
| Shoot Title | Narrative Shoot 1 | |
| Date of Meeting: | Friday 3rd July | |
| Date/Time of Shoot: | Sunday 5th July
10:30 – 4:30 |
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| Location of Shoot + Equipment needed | DRP Basement (town)
Equipment borrowing: Camera (Levi), Gimble (Luke) Props/Costume to bring: |
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| Model | Levi Laurence | |
| Levi will be playing the role of a conspiracy theorist, shut up in his basement and madly creating various theories and ideas as he aims to convince others of his conspiracies. | ||
| Costume + Make Up | What is it? | Who’s responsible? |
| Make up Shadows under eyes Tear effectHair Brushed, messy Costume |
Zoe
. Levi . Luke |
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| ^ Photos | 
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| Props (photos) | Tin foil Hat
Pinboard Scattered notes on floor |
Zoe
Zoe Zoe |
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| What do I need to remember whilst filming (what is in the background, detail? Visual Shot list) | We will need to tidy up afterwards, there are people living in the apartment upstairs so we cannot be too loud.
We have a general shot list, wanting to ensure some long, mid and close up shots as well as some specific acting on certain lines. |
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on Before we can go out and shoot for our video we needed to ensure we had permission to do so and fill out a risk assessment form, so that we and our parents/guardians are aware that we are responsible for any possible risks that come with shooting, especially outside of school time and off site.
Signed copies for everyone on shoot;
For this shoot I have permission from my dad to film in the basement of his office, as this space fits the style and themes we want to convey in the narrative. Since this is an office space we plan to shoot on a Sunday so as to not disturb any workers here nor have to limit our time/performance because of them.
on In using his music it was important that we did some background research into the artist himself so as to better reflect him in our work, and maintain the connection between the artist and their music, as well as maintaining the appeal for his fans. As the founder and organiser of the band Lemon Demon, Neil Cicierega has actually created different successful content before, gaining attention online with other projects such as Potter Puppet Pals. This side of comedic weirdness and experience with online success is seen translated into his music as Lemon Demon too, with other songs featured around quirky or unconventional themes (The Man in Stripes and Glasses, a song about Where’s Wally, and As Your Father I Expressly Forbid It, a song speaking directly to the listener as Neil takes the position of their father). This nature can also be seen is his twitter posts, often consisting of jokes, and (ironically) horrendously designed website. This all accumulates into an image of a man who knows exactly how to appeal to his niche but dedicated audience residing on the internet with memes, jokes and plenty of weird.
To better prepare for the shoot we also compiled a mood board of the visual mise-en-scene ideas we had for the star and video as a whole. Here we’ve listed some adjectives and ideas for conveying the character and vibes of the video, alongside some images to better visualise it. For our star we want to portray him as a dishevelled, self-secluded, obsessive conspiracy theorist, staying in his basement amongst scattered notes and theories, including distinct conspiracy theory icons such as a pin board with red strings, tin foil hat and erratic calculations and scribbles. Along with this, to better narrow down and make the visuals more coherent we have chosen to go with a retro style (using old mechanical keyboards and equipment) and red/blue/black colour scheme (these colours are typically associated with 3D glasses, another nod to typical conspiracy theorist ideas, as these glasses are said to allow you to “see things more clearly”).
on In order to create a better music video fitting to the artist and song it is important we consider the audience, who regularly listens to and enjoys Lemon Demon’s music? Unfortunately, for this case we couldn’t use the standard technique to answer these questions, as we chose to use a song created by a smaller indie artist there is no data on him or his band available on the YouGov website, so in order to get a better insight into the active audience of this music we instead sourced some survey results published to an online forum for fans of the music, (presentation found here https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14pX7WFtA7wXmn8CWSAFzKZavJYSx1JAuDsbEFP_PzSY/mobilepresent?slide=id.g565813d09d_0_45 ). This allowed us to gather some more ideas about the type of people who listen to this music.
As shown below, the audience is primarily under 18 years of age, male and part of the LGBTQ+ community. This specific appeal is described in the source as being due to the unique and inclusive nature of the music and community around it, allowing members of the LGBTQ+ to feel included. This idea is furthered by the fact that many fans are younger, and likely more keen to find communities like this to join and feel comfortable in.
As well as this, many fans who took the survey mentioned their affiliation with other internet-based interests and communities, such as anime, manga, webcomics, video games and podcasts. They also showed interest in the following bands/musicians;
Brockhampton – American alternative hip hop band
Mitski – Japanese-American indie rock singer-songwriter
Tally Hall – American (indie) rock band
Mother Mother – Canadian indie rock band
Jack Stauber – American synth-pop singer-songwriter
They Might Be Giants – American alternative rock band
Oingo Boingo – American new wave band
This research will better allow us to create a video that will reach the audience of the music, being able to include references, themes and motifs that can be recognized and appreciated by this community, whilst an elder generation may not notice details and references to online theories and conspiracies, a community that is much more engaged with online media such as this will much better appreciate and enjoy these references, therefore creating a more overall successful video for the target audience.
on Before creating our first test shoot we gathered some ideas in this shot list, collecting examples of the shots and angles we want to include in our video before moving on and creating it. This is important to consider before shooting as it encourages us to better consider what conventions of the genre, themes and messages we want to convey with our cinematography. Our song is technically part of the pop genre, consisting of music videos often featuring comfortable, standard mid/long shots that sit safely within the idea of being a popular, successful video for the artist. However, whilst our song is supposedly within this genre, we are likely going to take a more alternative approach to it, as the themes of the song itself convey ideas of madness, instability and eccentricity. Due to this we’ll aim to use a range of more unconventional shots, with extreme close ups, fast cuts, and low angle shots to stand out more as a video in itself and to be more than just some visuals to go alongside a song.
on For this first practice shoot I learnt a good amount about what does and doesn’t work, and what I’ll need to work on and improve moving forward.
In this instance, I’m happy with the sync of the video and audio, editing to the beat and achieving accurate lip syncing. This also allowed us to experiment with colour and light adjustments (although this example isn’t the most complex, with a singular adjustment layer with one filter applied over all). I am also happy with how we managed to convey lots of expression in directing this performance (despite this being a test shoot, not using the same actor that we will for the final product), showing how we can successfully convey our ideas to the actors.
However there is of course room for improvement, as multiple shots were out of focus, something we should look out for and avoid in future. We could also work on improving our efficiency with filming time, as this video alone required two shoots to achieve exactly what we wanted. This can be improved by trying to put together a more concise list of the exact shots we need before going into a shoot. I feel that, for the real thing, we can also make an effort to better control the lighting of the set and shot consistency (the camera moves very slightly in places here), as well as allow ourselves to be more experimental and ambitious with editing in post.
