Round two – Narrative

When telling a story through a narrative, you will not be able to tell it to your best ability without having devised at least a shot list. The narrative photo board helped us especially to visualise our narrative in planning so we knew exactly what details of mise en scene to start setting up as soon as we arrived at location. It also helped us divvy up the responsibilities between the pair allowing for a smoother day on shooting and spreading out the workload.

Performance shoot post production

This is the performance shoot rough cut of our music video. The star image of the performer is greatly grunge and goth. The torn dress, dark eye makeup and dark tones of costume help establish or star as gothic, moody and famous. The props we used, the flashing camera and microphone help convey the sense that our star hit fame early, and has now become used to and even aggravated by all the attention.

Self assessment where we were successful:

• I feel as if we nailed the makeup and accessories. Especially with the prominent and shining lipstick and the bow really sends out and indie image with it’s bold leopard print pattern.
• The camera flashes make her seem like a public celebrity type of figure. Which was the aim, to make it appear as if our star was in an interview but really just lip syncing her hit song.
• Her expression tells an audience watching that she knows who he is, that’s she’s comfortable in the stardom and has so much potential whilst also simultaneously looking young and bold.
• I think as if in terms of the edit, the edits cut swiftly and the shots have a kind of glue between them because our star will have changed her position in each shot, keeping things well paced and intriguing especially when she lays down or when she being ambushed by the paparazzi.
• I found that we used the space in the black studio effectively particularly when implemented the use of the slider. The slider slid to just out of the parameters of the black sheet in the black studio which adds a sense of indie budget moviemaking which helps the video fit in to the genre nicely paired with the moody grungy look of the star.
• I am quite happy with how we have a mostly fixed down camera to a tripod for a majority of the performance shots. This is because the still camera is ok when what is inside the shot is entertaining.

Targets for improvement:

• We could have looked at an outfit swap or maybe a make-up artist on standby to make her seem like an important figure putting her in the spotlight helping her appear more famous and sought after. Maybe if a girl would have stood and kept reaching in with a make-up brush to give her a touch up between camera flashes. This is because it adds the element of behind the scenes building more intrigue to the production because of how her fans would find out what make-up she uses, it could have given the production that encouragement of social interaction.
• I believe improvements could be made on the edit, focusing more on editing to the beat to keep the video at a nice quick pace. A quick pace is good because it adds energy behind the shots, almost momentum, if the edits are snappy and if in the narrative we stick to the rules of continuity than the production will see success.
• Ensuring all shots are framed and focused to my best ability. If the camera work is good and the narrative is good, then there will be no difficulty producing a successful production.
• It can frequently be seen the the star makes eye contact with the camera or with me behind the camera or slips up on a lyric and those moments need cutting or reshooting.
• Not cutting back to the same shot excessively, having some different shots in a smooth rotation and try not to accidently reuse clips say where the star is singing the chorus and it is hard to differentiate between clips.
• Establishing a place where to begin the narrative. This is vital as if it doesn’t start in time the video will become confusing and hard to follow but at the same time if it is started to early it could be perceived as jumpy and indecisive as a piece of media. Almost as if it doesn’t know what it’s doing or wants to do.

Shoot 1 feelings and thoughts

I went to our schools very own black photography studio to film our first performance shoot. The studio was perfect because we could paint our goth themes on the screen with the deep black background and it helped her grungy costume and makeup paired with other aspects of Mise en scene to stand out perfectly.

In my opinion, the shoot went reasonably well. I’m happy with our shots although some are fuzzy, the good ones make up for it and there is always the ability to do a reshoot in our spare time.

The mistake we made was thinking we could film the whole song in one. The song, being four minutes long should have been shot in two half’s each time to allow our star to take a break, catch her breath so not to wear her out. A shot I definitely think we needed was a well framed extreme close up of our star’s mouth when lip syncing the lyrics. Coming in close with the camera is the best way to evoke emotion.

Looking onward, I will focus on more clear directing to bring the best acting out of my star. I have considered that a main aspect of 80s synth and pop genre music the dance routines always crop up in the music videos.

Focusing forward, my group member and I will be arranging a reshoot. I will home in on the movement of my actress to depict her as a moody teen character. When editing the footage I will do my best job at editing to the beat maintaining the lip-sync and upholding and preserving my goth teen grunge star image.

Planning and planning right

The production meeting agenda is a brilliant way to establish the details of any project. It is a written agreement that helps a group stay clear of any disagreement down the line. Done properly, the production meeting agenda will ensure that you are able to source the correct Mise en scene for the correct star image in a media shoot at the same time ensuring conventions are followed and stuck to, monitored by the group adding to the shared production meeting agenda.

Stars and what makes them

Deconstructing the personality and the image of the star of our chosen song helped us to further understand our genre and its repertoire of elements. 

Design by Annabelle Webb & Henry Gray

Risk assessing

Without a risk assessment, a project is cannot be carried out. Risk assessments are a key point of health and safety. They help to create awareness of hazards and risks . Risk assessments provide control.

Our signed risk assessment for the upcoming shoot next Thursday 23/06/22

Associating a shot to a genre

Examining shots and their contents and how they fit with our genre conventions, indie pop 80’s synth has shown me that you don’t need a moving camera, it is about what is happening in the frame. Editing is a crucial aspect of music video making. I now know that a  sloppy edit can remove all value to a production and that it lets down the cinematographer hugely if the edit is bad because the great shots (if shot well are just thrown together.

We have really put a magnifying glass up to our genre in this task, helping us to further progress when building our star image and guiding us to pick out what they will do and wear in the process.

Conventional narratives of our genre are most commonly love stories of sadness. Sometimes bands in peculiar locations in trouble with an enemy force to create a sense of story. Sometimes the narrative would be a protagonist on a journey and the genre comes in through their weird experiences through a repertoire of elements such as love interests, odd looking people and antogonists.

Moving from the idea stage to the solid plan stage

Building up a narrative from the ground has proven itself difficult, considering already the various components and more specifically the performance and narrative our music video has been raised up from a concept into more of a solidified plan.

Choosing to go with a predominantly narrative based music video will be a challenge, but not a challenge I do not think my group members and I can’t cope with.

As a group, we  want to be conventional whilst also experimenting with  new styles and methods or revisiting old ones. Our teacher had the idea of using the 80s style larme material and shoulder pads as the song reminded her of the techno 80s synth heavy rock and glam metal spawning from the decade.  We want our star image to tie in fittingly with our song, whilst simultaneously looking appropriate for our narrative.

Pitch video with group and teacher 

Final pitch slideshow

• Positives
• good choice of song, original.
• nice plot, exciting.
• good locations.
• great theme.
• nice adapting to each others preferences.

• Targets
• vision needs more of a focus.
• the incorporation of aliens to uplift the narrative into something more playful.
• lip syncing.
• costume needs more thought.
• more brainstorming on shot types and star image.

Copyrights and copywrongs

With copyright having considerable effects on how we perform and complete the music video project in media, as a collective, we thought it would be best to ask for permission from the artist themselves or their management team in order to stay within the laws and rules of copyright infringements.

I emailed for permission from the management team of artist Grimes.

Teamwork makes the dreamwork

In a group collaboration of any number, it is sensible to devise an agreement to delegate the tasks and workload, dividing up the work and establishing any given skills all to ensure a group production is well managed, organised, produced and has a chance of succeeding.

signing this group agreement is making a commitment to an extent to perform your designated tasks and can act act as a reference when say an argument erupts or a feature of MES can’t be agreed on.