Director's Commentary

Commentary done by Nikki-Leigh Rogers

CD Cover

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Inside right

Magazine/news paper adverts analysis

Whilst exploring and researching magazine and news paper adverts, we have found that the more mainstream and well know artists have a higher demand off the record company to make sure their face is on every thing they do, there face needs to be remembered and having there face on there cd cover and adverts leaves consumers with no doubt that its that certain artists cd/advert. Then there is the less established artists who appeal to a more niche market, who don’t have any particular demand to make them big and mainstream, they will get them selves remembered by there original and natural music and so they can have creative freedom with the cd cover and adverts. Their face doesn’t have to be on the advert; in many of them the text used is all that is needed to establish who the advert is advertising. A lot of the adverts are inspired by the lyrics in the song and so will be the music video.

Blog homework- comparing AS and A2 production work

When filming our A2 music video we noticed quite clearly the differences from the AS production work in the challenges we had to overcome, to create a successful imaginative music video. Last year as we were new students we had more guidance and stability through our work, we kept strictly to techniques used and needed, such as a variety of different shots. Even though, this year we still aimed for a wide range of shots also, the work has become a lot more independent encouraging us to stamp our own style onto the video. At the beginning of the planning process we studied Goodwin’s theory and how to apply it to our own work. We have worked around this theory and it has allowed us to explore a lot more this year, as the stimulus is broader so we can highlight our talents. Whereas, last year, we had to pick a genre of film and focus vividly on how to portray our ideas into that style.

This year we don’t have to focus on pleasing a genre or style but instead were allowed to be inspired by the actual song. We listened to the lyrics and brainstormed our ideas that fitted really well together. We don’t have to make the narrative so clear for the audience to understand and follow. In some ways this has been more challenging, as having a slightly abstract video can be harder to edit and put together. Furthermore jerky handheld movements with a camera last year could suggest and provoke many different things, however this year, it is not appropriate so all filming must be done in detail and precision. We have the same technology as last year so the quality of the filming cannot be improved, however more equipment is available (such as the crane) in order to create a more music video and professional essence.

In the editing process the most challenging thing we have found which we did not have last year, is matching the footage to the music video. Other than that we have more experience in ‘Final Cut Pro’ and do not need as much guidance. Making not just our jobs but also our teachers jobs easier!

This year I feel that managing the blog and filming has been a bit more demanding. This is because there is more footage to film for the video in order to fill the full song and have a creative narrative. However, in the editing process we have found time to keep up with the blog and update what we have been doing in the planning process. This year we have more of an idea of what examiners are looking for when it comes to the blog so more pressure has hit us because this year they have to be much more advanced.

Filming Day 5

Today we finished our final shoots from our storyboard, all we had to do was smash the doll's face on the floor. In order for us to catch this intense moment we used two cameras from different angles so not only we were definite we got a shot but also we have a choice and an option to cut between the two. This will hopefully look effective in the editing as our original plan is too slow the footage down and have it at the end as the song fades out.

Filming: Day Four

For this day of filming I had already taken some footage of the sky whilst walking home from college one day, this footage didn't turn out the way I wanted it to be as I wanted to have the clouds moving through the sky so we could speed it up with time lapse. That day there weren't any clouds, as the sky was mainly just plain grey. However I saw the footage and noticed that the trees I walk past whilst walking home are towering above the camera and are being quite intimidating, giving a sense of vulnerability and fear. This isn't the same tone we were looking for however we kept the footage as we believed it could still work in the music video.

During this day we spent most of the day in the editing suite uploading the footage we currently had onto the computer hard drive, although at the end of this day we went into the city of Manchester to film the alleyway scene. Here we found a very small and secluded alleyway that worked perfectly. We had a few ideas for how the filming should go therefore we tried them all, one idea was for the victim to walk through the alleyway with the main character following her, and for her to turn round and see this main character. And the other idea was for her to turn round and see nothing, then turn her head back round and notice the main character at the end of the alleyway giving more of a supernatural feel to it. We will see which idea works better in the editing process. We finished this day off with some footage of the big wheel in Manchester, just for a time-lapse idea to cut to a few times in the music video.

Filming: Day Three

For this lesson two more porcelain dolls had arrived, one of them being a large one with a head we can cut off and place on the end of a stick. Which was an idea we had for the music video, linking directly to the lyrics 'We've got heads on sticks'. This was another doll we could drop and it would break in the way we imagined the break to look like. Before this lesson also I took the camera home to film myself standing at the end of my bed to directly link to the lyric 'standing in the shadows at the end of your bed'. It was quite hard to get the right angle in this shot as I'm quite tall and it's hard to fit my entire body in a shot at the end of the bed. I managed to fix this by filming different shots of me standing at the end of the bed using different angles we could cut between however which worked better. At home I also filmed the lights in my bedroom fading in and out that could be used in the montage of lights near to the end of the music video.

During day three of filming we focused on the scene of the main character dressing his victim as a doll. We did this by dressing Catherine in the doll costume and having the main character use a wire to tie her to a chair, we focused on having many panning shots of this scene, to do this we used the crane to use shots panning from the ground upwards or the ceiling downwards. We also used the rule of thirds in a shot of the main character playing with the dolls while the victim is tied to a chair in the other half of the shot. To take the victim out of focus we used depth of field. We also had a mid-shot of the main character rubbing lipstick on the victims face and applying mascara in an aggressive fashion.

Filming: Day Two

For this lesson we received three porcelain dolls therefore we decided to film the scenes in which they were of use. For example we filmed a few clips planned in our storyboard of close-up shots of these dolls faces. The heads of the dolls were moveable also, so for a few of the shots we placed our fingers out of the mis-en-scene - behind the head of the doll for example - and moved the dolls head to be looking at the camera for a very sinister feel. We also filmed scenes of the main character playing with these dolls at a table, using close-ups of the main character's hands along with his face. We bought some candles for this lesson too, in which we used as props to stand on the table and to burn the dolls, the melted wax of these candles was dripped onto the dolls face for one shot in addition.

Before this day of filming Catherine took the camera home to film footage from a car window driving through a city for half an hour. This is something we will be using for a time-lapse scene to cut to throughout the music video. This will add a very hazy and hypnotizing tone to see the lights of other vehicles and lampposts shine in the dark. In the studio on the day we also experimented with shadows to create some unnerving shots of the main characters shadow along with others.

After filming in the studio that day we decided to go into the city of Manchester to film more scenes. The scene where the main character is standing in the middle of a street while other passers-by flutter past him was filmed in this day, I had to stand on a street in manchester in my costume for twenty minutes while others walked past me, this scene will have a time-lapse effect used on it to give a sense of isolation for the main character as I stand in the same position while others are moving hurried around me. We also filmed the main character standing by a church looking at a tomb in a curious fashion this day along with an attempt at filming the scene where the victim is caught by the main character at an alleyway, however we did not have enough time for this scene, so we decided we should film it another day.

Filming: Day One

For our first day of filming we decided to use the production room in the college for a dark atmosphere to film the main character in his setting. We wanted the atmosphere in the room to be dark and smoky so we managed this by closing all the curtains, shining one light on the main character and spraying deodorant into the shot to give it a smoky look. We hadn't received any porcelain dolls for this lesson therefore we had to make the most of what we already had, this meant we were filming the main character walking around the dark room and sitting on a chair in the room, looking paranoid and slightly insane.

We wanted to use this room to film the scene in our music video where there is a light becoming slightly larger in a shot, as if it is protruding from the darkness. We managed to film that with one of the spotlights in the room, using the fader. We filmed the light head on and faded it in, this gives the sense of a natural light expanding in the room. This day we thought of a few ideas for our album cover also and took a few pictures for it, mainly of the main character with a light shining on his face.

In order to look for some more locations Nikki-Leigh came up with the idea of an abandoned mansion which she had seen before near her house. We decided to walk to that abandoned mansion to see if it would suit our music video. We went inside when we got there to find that it was completely empty and derelict. Anything in the house was rubble, it was perfect for our music video, especially one of the rooms we found which could have been the living room, it was empty and the only light in the room would come from a window in the corner which was broken.

Props used during production

Technology

We are currently in the process of experimenting with our filming and creating our own effects so we can magnify them through editing. For example, to create a smoking effect on our main character, we used a sharp spotlight to highlight his stance and then sprayed deodorant. We did this in the studio where we created not only the area of focus but also an eerie disturbing atmosphere. The lights we used were dedolights, which are normally used for a professional music video or theatre performances. We also added to the more professional ‘look’ to the video as we used a crane to film most of our footage. This gave our shots a more smooth approach and allowed us to move around our set more freely so we did not have any jolty shaky footage (which wasn’t meant to be like that!) So, in result of this when putting our footage together it made it a lot easier for different shots to fit together and make a soft flow giving it more of a music video essence.

Even though we did use the crane we also used a tripod for when we filmed the time lapsing technique and the entrance into the abandoned mansion. This again gave it a steady look that made the video focused. We used a normal digital camera to film our footage, as it was easier to connect the camera to the tripod and crane.

Using these techniques have really improved the quality of our filming and have given us a lot more opportunities to experiment with different shots and angles. For example the crane allowed us to follow Matt around the room while having the camera come up from under the table. This gave the video an unusual effect, which matched our aim for a disturbing unsettling atmosphere.

Clothing and make-up:

Doll character:

We have decided on an old/vintage frilled collared shirt and a spotted black sheer dress. We looked closely at what clothes the porcelain dolls wore and got our inspiration from that. With the make up, again we looked carefully at how we could recreate the make-up from a porcelain doll. We are going to have the doll characters face a pail colour with blusher that complements the pail face, then red lipstick and long eye lashes. Throughout the video the doll character gets more outrageous make-up put on her by the obsessed man character, red lipstick is smeared on her cheeks and mascara is rubbed round her eye’s, her hair also gets increasingly big and messy.

Obsessed man character:

Throughout the video he wears a black top and black pants, almost understated but dark and sinister at the same time. Intimidating and overpowering this character is best suited in all black.

Inspiration

Our inspirations for the video came from sources such as horror films, for example with the doll theme, which is used in the modern horror film 'child's play'. The main inspiration for the music video was our thoughts while listening to the song. By listening to the song itself the haunting feel, along with some child-like undertones helped us decide on the theme of the video. The atmosphere of the song is quite dark and that was one of the main inspirations towards our idea. Our idea of time-lapse came from many different sources and other music videos in which the time-lapse has been used. For example Ed Sheeran's song 'A Team'.

The happy persona of the main character despite the fact of him murdering victims comes from the influence of the Aphex Twin video 'Come To Daddy' where there are a variety of smiling characters causing mayhem. The costume of a full black costume came from our own idea of keeping the main character within the dark atmosphere of the song. Also that was the same with a doll costume on a human, that was due to us developing that idea about the main character's doll obssession .