Editing Lesson with Matt

We went to the studio to remember the skills we already have and acquire new ones for the editing of our music video, which will take place in a minimum time frame. Matt was very organised and took us step by step through the process, chronologically. Then, he gave us general advice that helped us refocus on the general task and have a general sense of understatement.

His advice was structured in four main steps that he broke down:

1. Sync: syncing the video and organising the footage. There are two ways: by image, checking the numbers in the video playing in the iPad; and by sound, using the sneer drum to match the video and the music. It is essential after everything is synched perfectly, to label all the shots and sort them in groups to save the time of shoveling around later on. After finishing these basic tasks that are conscientious but essential, it is a must to duplicate them in case we want to come back to them untouched in the future. 
2. Performance cut: this is the cut where we see our singer and dancers around him, also him playing the guitar potentially. It is important to listen to the beats of the song and illustrate the music. Follow the movement.
3. Narrative cut: cut of the four girls in the rooms. We should stick to a plan in which we focus on the 4/5 different scenes happening. By editing ten minutes at a time and aiming to make them the most exciting ones, half the job is done.
4. Final cut: mixing both together. It is better to try to directly do a final cut instead of wasting time with a rough cut which is not going to be as sophisticated.
5. Colour/effects: colour grading. The time will come to worry about this.

Overall, it is essential to make a plan and stick to it, without caring too much about showing the progression to other students. We have to sink deep and concentrate. 

Development of New Idea

Feedback on Lip Sync

After the lip sync exercise August carried out, we were extremely pleased with the effort he had made by learning the lyrics of the whole song by heart, as I said in previous posts. However, Lily and I discussed a few pieces of advice we could give him. We have thought of doing a final practice before the shoot day.

As you can see in the screenshots, I advised him to be a bit more confident and seductive, as any musician would like to be in their first campaign. I also told him to sing the song rather than mime it because, otherwise, the effect is not as real.

I feel very confident that August, as a responsible person that has excelled in the tasks we set him before, will work with these indications and make the song his very soon. I am looking forward to seeing him perform. 

Costumes for August

Animatic Storyboard

We shot each frame of our original storyboard and edited it together in order to have a general picture of what our music video would look like. However, our idea has changed and we need to restructure some concepts, which I will take care of by altering some frames.

This is still a step in the learning process, so I include a section of the entire original storyboard below to give a rough idea of what we wanted in the beginning.

Lip Sync Practice

This morning, during our lesson, we have come to realise that Katie, August's Media teacher, was absent. Therefore, he was in PS without much commitment. It has been a great opportunity because, last night, he texted me again that he might be busy on Wednesday. There were so many problems with him having time to do a lip sync session that we were worried about our cast decisions. However, it has all been sorted and we have grabbed him for ten minutes. 

We tried to make him feel less uncomfortable than last time (during the photoshoot). I started playing Great Dane on my phone, while Lily began filming him. The four of us were immediately so surprised because August had already learned the lyrics of the whole song and, without any text to help him, he was able to lipsync to it. It all seemed to come together for once.

Now we are definitely casting him as the singer, because apart from having the look and the chilled vibe we are looking for, he seems really committed to make the project work.

Shoot Date

We have been given our provisional shoot dates today. We have to give Blue Cards to the A2 students so they can miss their lessons on Monday 20 November. 

Monday 20 November

Great Dane

Lily Kaye

Elena Escalante Del Hoyo

Jaime Fraser-Pye

Petr Zheltov

JJM   (Studio)

Lead Singer August Berner
Performer    Mel Wang
Performer    Faderera Agboola
Peformer     Sarah Stotter 

TBC:  + 2 Children

Jaime has sent an email to the cast so that they know at this stage. Hopefully, there won't be any problems now that we know so in advance.

Organising a Lip Sync Session with August

In order to be more prepared towards the date of the shoot, we as a group thought that the most sensible thing to do was to assure that the performer we had (August Berner) was the right one for the task. Consequently, I texted him to arrange a meeting. During the conversation, he told me that he already knew the song reasonably well. We were very impressed because he had only known about Great Dane since the week before. Now we are in the stage where we are having trouble to meet up with him in a time that suits everyone because some appointments have prevented him to make it in the time we arranged. However, I am positive we will manage to have the lip sync exercise done before half term.

Email to Jason to Book the Studio

I've had some issues with August's availability, but it seems that we have the same free periods so I am going to try to organise the lip sync test shoot with him tomorrow during the second lesson. I have emailed Jason to find out if the Studio is going to be free. The reply has been positive.

Group Discussion

We have had a whole group discussion taking into account that it is the last week of the term. We've been gathering a list of what we are lacking in terms of props and arrangements for the shoot. That way, we have a better idea of what we have to do and how to organise the tasks among the members of the group. 

With a clearly separated list of the four sets, we have thought of the props we need in every one of them specifically. Likewise, we have identified the need to talk to the set designers as soon as possible in order to let them know all the changes and arrangements we've decided to implement since our last meeting. Also, they may be able to help us improve each set and, most importantly, differentiate what's possible for us to have in the shoot and what is not. 

Apart from these issues, we need to have another session with August, our main performer, to make our final decisions as we have never seen him lip sync before and it could be a mistake to cast the key role so quickly. 

We will look at the props listed below and source them, and contact August to ask him about the session. We are thinking of filming him on Wednesday the 18th.

New Idea: Set Design. Detailed Sketches

Cast. Test Shoot.

Today I organised a test shoot in the Studio with our main actors and, with the help of Petr and Jaime, I took some pictures of them. I arranged the lighting to ressemble that of the video by having Matt dim the lights and give them a sense of warmth. The results are below.

August Berner is potentially going to be our main perfomer, doing the lip sync of the song. He has an unusual look and the fact that he is foreign does make him fit the look of the video. His hair is quite extravagant and we can definitely style it interestingly. I think that he would also be a good substitute for Cosmo Pyke, as the original voice could come across as his. I feel like he is not very comfortable in front of the camera, though, so we may need to have a couple rehearsals before the day of the shoot.

Faderera Agboola is going to be one of the three girls who explore the different corners of the house. She has the look we want and I believe she'll pull the acting off as well, as she will simply we asked to be playful and make her relationship work with the other two girls.

Sarah Stotter also has a special look, with two different coloured eyes since she was born. She is very athletic, which will help in the day of the shoot when she has to follow a rough choreography in the tiny space we will have constructed.

                        

Mel Wang has a very delicate beauty and completely closes the international circle that we have created. We want to make an all-inclusive video to go along with the overall star image we have thought of. Mel is skinny and quite short, which will be valuable in the day of the shoot with the box-based set.

New Idea: Set Design. First Sketches

I have done some quick sketches to make our new idea work, always thinking about the concept of having body-sized rectangular boxes as the limits of the frame. I have come up with rough notions of how most of our sets will look like and what props we will include. Likewise, I have drawn some pipe systems and the material with which the walls could potentially be made. I believe that I came up with something good: using various levels of boxes, which allows the girls who are crawling around and exploring the environment to spy on other characters, the children who are secretly reading in bed. 

Though they are very simple drawings, I believe they take us one step further in our process of refining our idea after the feedback we received from Matt.

Sketches de elenae81

Feedback from Matt and Set Designers

We had a meeting with Matt, who apart from being cameraman and post-producer, this year is handling the music video productions, and two set designers. We discussed our idea and showed them our story board and our treatment. We got told that our idea is very complicated for a low budget music video and that we need to simplify it. We had a brainstorm of ideas all together and discussed what we can possibly do. We came up with a way to compress our concept, still having the element of the different rooms, but making them very small just like on the photo below. We would basically put people into these sorts of boxes and create a unique effect. Apart from claustrophobia, it would have an impact both of alienation and intimacy, almost a paradox. We would suggest that these people are interacting between floorboards, around sewing pipes.

We will have to change our idea slightly because we will not be able to have people dancing around, but the movement will be translated through the crawling around. Our lighting will be simplified. It will be interesting to create a room with props within such a small place, though also challenging because every space must represent something very clear. The touch of voyeurism could be included by the girls peeking through pipes to a box on top or under them where two children are reading with torches, for instance.

We are very excited to go along with this version of our initial idea, though it is going to take some extra time to alter the original storyboard and re-think the narrative of the characters, as well as the complexity of the set design. However, we will make it work as we are counting with the help of professionals and, ultimately, our own passion. 

Copyright Email to Cosmo Pyke's Manager

In order to be able to use the song we have chosen and post it in YouTube withoit it being taken down, we have been cautious and sent Cosmo Pyke's manager an email regarding the copyright request. 

Shooting our Storyboard

We have been shooting the frames from our original storyboard in order to be able to edit them and get it animated, which will provide everyone a clearer view of how our music video is going to look like, especially if we cut it with the beat of the song. It has been a conciencious session where we had a quick recap with the use of the camera. 

Storyboard

Story Board from Zheltov2000

Email to Cast

I have emailed our main cast (we still have to find two children for the bunk bed scene) to make sure they would be up for working with us and if they can come in for some quick pictures of them. I have also explained our idea so that they know what they would take part in. They all seemed pretty excited. 

Initial Ideas for Make-Up: The Girls

For the female characters who act as the subconcious of the singer and merge with the inhabitants of the house before he abandons the basement and visits tyhe first room which is shown, I have gathered some imagery which could influence our final aesthetic decisions. The make-up is quirky and alternative, relating to the general vibe of the music video.

All these ideas seem to come from another world and are very artsy and creative. They could remind us of cartoonish characters or expressive paintings. They would work very well with the feel of alienation we want to convey. Tjis make-up is not about being beautiful, it is about being different and contributing to create a certain mood and atmosphere.

Set Design & Characters. Mood

These are some ideas for the look of our various characters throughout the video. They are just an inspiration for us and we do not want to emulate their looks. However, they give us some key ideas for the concept we are developing.

Also, an artist who Lily knows, the singer IAMDDB, uploaded a video some days ago called "More" which is similar to ours. The shots ressemble the ones I drew on our storyboard, and the use of location and colour schemes are also comparable. We could take some ideas from this young artist's approach.

Audience Feedback

We put together a video with two people who conform to our established sets and beliefs and we got very positive feedback from them.

Target Audience

As a group, we have profiled a stereotyped audience of people who like to move away from the norm. If we take into consideration teenage prototypes, we would definitely be seeking for drifters, who aren’t really sure about what they want —which means that they will be easily seduced by our original narrative and alienation of daily life because it will seem to them a thousand times for original and defining as to the rest of the people. They will have something to hold on to. Opposed to this, those with quite a rebellious attitude, as well as innovators, who would like to make their own mark in the world, are prone to feel identified with the artist’s ideology.

Our target audience will be people from teenagers from the age between 15-21 because, as the actual artist of the song is as young as 18, we want to keep that star image of talented youth so that it appeals to other aspiring young artists. Our belief is that it is key when bringing together our target audience. Cosmo Pyke is also a skater and a model. Therefore, he is a role model for other boys who are not as academic. With a bit of creativity, they can achieve what Cosmo has or even more. They do not need a long career to come up with an idea that will influence the Media like showing people in their daily lifestyle with a slightly weird turn to it. Skateboarding itself opens out a huge range of an underground audience.

As the music itself, it could be described as lazy, spacey and with a certain poetry and romanticism to it. We are searching to impress an audience of people who have open minds and a laid-back attitude, definitely going back to the roots of music which is soulfully meaningful.

The gender can be both male and female, though the singer will probably inspire male audiences more, who will feel like they can achieve what he did. However, the girls represented in the video are also very important. They embrace their femininity and represent a metaphoric being which could well be the journey of the artist’s mind through memories and all the different people in the world, or specifically, in the house above him. 

Singer's costume

We have been thinking about costumes because the aesthetic choice is extremely important for our video, setting a mood and attracting and satisfying the right audience. Regarding the singer's outfit, we want to go for an alternative, edgy vibe. We want the singer to have an urban style, not too smart, and fairly youthful. Maybe some vintage clothing, taking influence from a 90's aesthetic, as well as skateboard culture. All of these ideas relate to the young age of the original singer of the song, who was barely eighteen when the track was released. We also want the singer's outfit to be fairly simple, not to wacky but still have a slight edge to it. Obviously, we don't want it to be too striking because we already have very clear stylised rooms and characters above, in the four rooms where the narrative evolves. Below is a mood board of the kind of clothing we may be looking at:

Overall for his outfit we think we are going to go for something such as cropped trousers/jeans, maybe a vintage shirt or jumper, trainers, and rings.