Drum Kit issue...Really?

After successfully filmingon friday we returned to school on monday to find out that the teachers were under the impression that we had left the drum kit outside unattended as well as leaving it outside for the whole weekend. Something that was certainly incorrect. It had simply built up from something that was incorrectly said. We immediately corrected their thoughts and thourghly showed our resposibility.

Yussra and Marwa.

Filming the Band.

With the permission of the music department we headed down to set the equipment at 2:20. This allowed us to start filming at 2:40, we had set up the band with george on drums in the centre at the back and tom on bass and lead vocals situated just to the left of the drums and closest to the front. George on guitar and the right just behind tom. This created our vision for the three man band. We had one chance to get this right and with a deadline of 4:30 we had to crack on working hard and getting all the shots perfect from the very begining.
On the list of what to shoot was:
1) Stationary shots of all band members with different angles for the whole song.
2) Moving shots of band members faces focusing alot on tom.
3) capturing a significant amount of facial expressions from Tom whilst singin so that he expresses the words well.
4) Alot of moving shots experimenting going into band and out.
5) Close up shots of all the instruments.

And i believe that we successfully accomplished these shot effectively within the time limit we were given.

Yussra Marwa.

Filming: day 2

Marwa’s house was the perfect setting for the last few scenes of our music video. We could connect the shots of me walking up the stairs to where I find George and Anna in the bed. This worked well with continuity and does not break the viewer’s sense of reality. As we had a few shots we needed to shoot in light, we began filming the scene where I hop down the middle of the street, excited to see Anna when I get back to the house. We faced many problems while shooting this scene; including the time which we had available to film, as it was beginning to get dark quickly. But fortunately, we managed to get footage which we felt was very effective.

Next, we began the scenes where I entered the house then moving the onto the bedroom scenes next, as we felt that this would be the longest process. It was very strenuous task, and so we decided to be creative by using a number of different angles in order to get the facial expression and emotions which we felt that the audience could relate to. The challenges with these scenes were the space we had available for the crew and the actors. It was very cramped but we managed to obtain the shots which we wanted.

Lastly, we filmed the scenes of me walking up the stairs to the bedroom. We filmed numerous versions of this scene, including me singing and not singing. We wanted to include a stairs scene because it relates to the music video theory of using many close-ups of the lead singer.

We were very fortunate to use Marwa’s house for the setting.
Tom

Tracking Troubles.

George's home provided a opportunity to take advantage of the layout of his kitchen and living room. We thought that tracking from the kitchen where Tom was situated to Anna in the living room, would really show their characteristics and would allow the audience to understand their roles in the household. However we didn't look at the floor before we attempted this shot we realised that the change in flooring from the kitchen and living room would cause a horrible jump in our footage. So our mission began to solve the problem, we used George's dogs bed to place the tripod and with me behind camera and George and Marwa on their knees pulling the dog bed smoothly we managed to get appropriate shots. Although it required quite alot of skill with timing and lifting and pulling, but we managed.

Yussra and Marwa.

Digipacks that inspire!

Researching digipacks proved easier than i anticipated, as quickly i began to realise that an album cover can literally be about anything. I wanted something that sticks in the listeners head, and that can become recognisable. i didn't want something bland and wanted an album cover that was enigmatic, and leaves the listener asking themselves what story the album cover is trying to tell.

Nevermind by Nirvana is one of the most famous albums and album covers of all time, and what i liked was the way it broke conventions of album covers and goes against what the public expect from album covers. The Nirvana made a controversial album cover the suited their style of music and demeanour perfectly. It provokes many questions as well as to the actual meaning of the album.

Serotonin by The Mystery Jets is a simple album cover with the whole band on the front. I found that really there is no secret meaning to this, and nothing too outlandish about it. It is a simple cover of the band, something that is easy for us to do, and it reflects the uplifting spirit of the band and in particular, this album.

I photographed my copy of Kid A by Radiohead, specifically for it's content within it's digipack rather than it's album cover. It provides a whole booklet, all of puzzling pictures that still i cannot work out any meaning for them. This of course is the beauty of it, a deeply fascinating digipack for an extraordinary album.

This i think covers all the areas we are looking at for the Digipack. I feel that Nirvana's Nevermind will relate best to what we are trying to do, but perhaps to tone down the controversy, as this doesn't fit in with any ideas we've already begun formulating.

George

Mise-en-scene

Mise-en-scene played a key role for us as a group as we spent about three lessons discussing optional sets for the music video. Our biggest issue was the dilemma of the bedroom scene- we couldn't use a parents room because we knew it had to look like it was a young recent couple and it couldn't be our cluttered teenage bedrooms. After hours and hours of discussing we realised that my room would do the job if we altered a bit. When we decided to shoot we moved a desk a couch and placed the bed in the middle of the room which, not only made filming easier but also centred the importance of the couple in the bedroom rather than anything else. George's kitchen seemed to flow well with my bedroom as it seemed to be in one house and the dividing wall separating the kitchen and the living room allowed us to track Tom easily when he handed Anna the sandwich. We also placed photos of Tom and Anna in photo frames in George's living room to create the full effect of a real couples home. For performance we went through many ideas. We were told that a green screen would be coming into the school soon and Tom was eager to use that whereas George a likened to the idea of using the Drama rooms in the school, whilst Yussra and I suggested a standard brick wall. The brick wall idea developed well when Tom and George suggested putting a band flyer up behind the band. When we got to the large brick wall making the music department in the school we realised one issue- a sandpit. We went hunting around the school eager to film as soon as possible and when we looked upon the other side of the music department we found a quiet green where we could easily film without any distractions. It also meant that transporting instruments wouldn't be hard and we could look like we were in a park or somewhere isolated. The green connotes a feeling of emotional loneliness as Tom seems to be surrounded by no one but his band mates whilst he yearns for female respect and nurture.

Yussra and Marwa

The First Shots

I took some intial shots of my idea for an album cover. There are a few bits i needed to touch up in order to make it the real deal, but i felt the felt there was enough for a good basis.





I will see what the feedback is tomorrow and build on it from there

George

The Digipack

Our idea for the digipack was to incorporate the various meanings of our album title. When making this I stuck with my initial idea of photographing someone using a computer to chat to people. The idea for me challenged our perceptions of relationships, the idea being that you can meet chat and perhaps fall for people, all through using the Internet and social networking, without actually meeting them. This system in effect is a good opportunity for lonely people to meet people without social interaction and I thought if I showed a person sitting lonely at their desk talking to someone via MSN Messenger, it would visually reflect the connotations of the album title. I thought we could reflect this by using a MSN conversation as the track listing as well, which would act as a cleaver play on social networking sites, and would be a original idea not yet explored by any other band, giving 'The Motion' a Unique Selling Point for their first album. It could also Relate to people who themselves also feel lonely perhaps emotionally unstable.

I can now begin to bring my idea to life

George

The Album Name

We discussed albums titles that we could use before thinking of a digipack cover, as the album title will impact what we design for our digipack. The discussion was over quickly as we all agreed on 'E-Motion', an idea I'd given as it fitted with our band name. It gives recognition for the band, as the band name is in the title. Self titling the album gains this same effect but we could use this to gain extra meanings to the album, with E-Motion suggesting a very emotive album that will contain some very personal tracks that the audience can connect with. The spelling of it (E-motion rather than Emotion) not only highlights the bands name in the track but also has connotations of the internet and the world wide web, Through use of 'E' being separated. This allows us to access a whole new meaning to the album.

We plan to integrate these meaning into our album cover.

George

The Change In Band Name

We just found out that our band name 'Moose' is already in use by another band... This meant we had to change the band name to something new. We decided to use a new band name from scratch rather than the ones we already had. We talked through a couple of ideas and finally settled on 'The Motion' which we felt was simple but very effective. It follows a similar demographic for indie bands so would help us to fit into this genre.

This came luckliy as we were about to dicuss ideas for a digipack which we will begin to do now.

George

Band Performance

We started to think of what our band should consist of. We realised that all we needed was a main singer, guitarist, bass and drums. To create a more band look we thought it would be better if Tom our male protagonist should be singing and playing an instrument this could show how talented he is. We assigned him to play the bass george to play the guitar and a firend coincidently named george to play the drums. Initially in the storyboard the backdrop which the band would play against was a 'interesting' brick wall however we realised that we personally did not own a drum kit and niether did we know of anyone who did. Yet the school did own a drum kit which after questioning the music department would allow us to use it. So it had to be filmed in school. We chose to place the band infront on a tree on grass, it was perfect and exactly what we needed.

Yussra and Marwa.

Photos of Filming

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomcox93/


During the time we had filming, we also took a few photos of locations, actors, props and general goings-on while filming. Below is our Flickr page, where you can view our on set images. Enjoy!

Tom

Music Video Analysis - Cater to You

We were set the task of reviewing a music video that is similar or deals with similar issues that were incorporated in our ideas for our own video. For this I have chosen Cater to You by Destiny's Child. I felt that this would be a suitable video because it dealt with the topics of relationships and men and women's roles within society.

Firstly, we see a lot of close ups of each of the band members. This supports Andrew Goodwin's theory of the record label wanting to see images of the singers, in order to promote them. Also, the singers are scantily dressed and act provocatively towards the camera. This shows that they are trying to attract the target market of both males and females. They are also trying to gain the attention of the voyeuristic audience as men are attracted to them and women want to be like them.

Also there are many lyrics that relate to the visuals on screen. "Let Me feed You, Let me run your bathwater, Whatever you desire, i'll aspire". These lyrics particularly relate to the woman servicing the man. However, a our song has the lyric "the female of the species is more deadlier than the male", we will subvert this context so that the female is the most dominant one in the relationship.

Tom

The Band Performence

Finished the band performance, which went very well and concluded the final scene which we had not already shot anything for. the costumes worked well with the three members of our band (Me, Tom and our friend George) all looking the part of an indie band. luckily we all knew how to play the instruments we had which would allow the video to look more authentic.

The location we chose suited the performance well. We wanted somewhere basic that wouldn't steal focus from the band. We wanted somewhere outside which would provide natural light rather than a lighting kit, and finding somewhere where we could fit the drum kit that was inside was also hard. We had to film inside school grounds as this was our only access to a drum kit. playing in front of the tree blocked out some of the view from behind us, and it provided us with a location to walk into shot from.

A problem we may have faced was is how bright it was towards the end of filming. As it was filmed outside we began to lose light. Luckily we were done before it got too dark that you wouldn't be able to see anything. Occasionally there were cars in the background which may have been a hindrance be at the moment it doesn't seem likely any were caught in the shot.

All is back of track with our filming and it should hopefully all finish soon.

George

Band Performance: Inspiration

As me and George regularly attend gigs of bands similar to the one we are trying to create, we felt that we would be inspired to recreate things we have seen on stage live for our band performance part of our video. It has always been a dream to be a performer on stage, and so this gave us a chance to act like our favourite musicians. One of the bands in which we drew much of our inspiration from was The Strokes. We began researching many live performances of the band online, trying to creatively change their behaviour and their persona on stage. We noticed that they were very reserved when trying to show off to their fans. They seemed very calm and relaxed and were not too over the top when it came to any solos or bridges. The band are not excessive when they play and are themselves when playing the instruments. We felt that this was the sort of image we would like to portray with out band.




Hopefully, we can try to avoid a performance similar to this...


It feels like the band are not being watched and that there relaxed front shows that they are comfortable when performing. Hopefully when we begin to film our band performance, we can try an number of methods as to how to portray our characters on screen be it reckless or timid.

Tom

Filming : Band Performance

For the band performance, we had the task of acquiring the instruments, assembling the band as well as finding a suitable location which we could utilise and allow all of our band memebers to play. After school, the whole group met in the music rooms and found instruments that we could use. We asked to borrow a drum kit and a bass guitar as well as two performance amplifiers. On top of this, we brought in our own equipment. We had the initial idea of filming by the gym block, as it had the simple background setting of a brick wall. However, once we put all the instruments in place, we realised that there would not be enough room for the band to move and also, there were certain things on the wall for example the fire alarm, which affected our shots.

For our performance, we kept to the criteria of Andrew Goodwin's theories. We exploited the use of star image, as well as the development of the star over time. We used a number of close-ups of each band member, in order to promote the band and create a sense of intimacy with the viewer. The close ups are also able to show what the band is offering, particularly the voice of the lead singer. John Stewart of Oil Factory states that he 'sees the music video as essentially having the aesthetics of the TV commercial, with lots of close ups and lighting being used prominently for the star's face'. For this, we tried many shots focusing on the lead singer in our video.

We had to take into account the setting while shooting our footage. We were unsure whether or not the time we had available would make the shots looked different when put in chronological order. However, we kept to a strict timing schedule, which allowed us to avoid the dark weather which would have delayed the time available to film. In terms of the band, all 3 of the members have a passion for music as part of our interest. Our background knowledge allowed us to portray what we have seen our favourite musicians act like be it in their own music videos or by seeing them live. Me and George had asked a friend, George, to be a part of the band and act as our drummer. He also had a basic grasp on how to play the drums and so our band were complete. In total, we shot a total of just under an hour of raw footage, were we captured many different angles and close ups of each band members, allowing us to be creative with the footage when it came to editing it into our final piece.


Tom

Filming : Day 1

Our first day of filming began smoothly. The location of choice was George's house, a setting whereby we could utilise the kitchen and adjoining Back room/conservatory, in order to keep a flow with camera movements and being able to lessen the amount of cuts in our footage. Although our scheduled filming time began 2 hours late, we were aware of what scenes needed to be refilmed. Also on this occasion, we had the fortune of using a school lighting kit, which helped to enhance the resolution of our footage.

One of the key Goodwin theories we tried to incorporate within the first few scenes of our music video is 'A relationship between visuals either illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics'. Our video is concentrating on the subject of genre, and how the lyrics play with the superior dominance of men over women, which in this case, it is the other way round. The concept of the video focuses on the lyrics 'The female of the species is more deadlier than the male'. Many iconographic acts have been used within our video, including the man making a sandwich for the woman, the woman cheating on the man and also the woman demanding the man for sex. We felt that these typical relationship issues were predominantely caused by men, whereas, we are subverting this image, not only to show that the woman is in control of the relationship, but she is 'deadlier than the male'.

Also, the video shows a relation between the lyrics and the visuals. 'A thousand thundering thrills await me, facing insurmountable odds gratefully'. The visuals shown at this point of the song is of the man making the sandwich. The use of 'await me' and 'facing insurmountable odds' could suggest that the video will be negative and that the protagonist will be the subject of this negativity. His blank facial expression show that the man is visually unhappy and that he is not looking forward to the actions that will proceed. This is then supported by the fact that the man is then hit by the woman, an action to show that she is physically in control and dominant over the man. Prior to this, the man speaks towards the camera unbeknownst to the woman, perhaps showing that he finds solace in the audience that he is addressing. It is a form of escapism for him, yet also allows for a sense of interaction with viewers, making them more involved with the video.

Tom

costumes

With the band performence coming up we've analysed various bands and thier looks. All bands and all members have a distinct style and we wanted our band to be recognisable. Obviously we have to work with what we already owned, but we all have some pretty good ideas that should look good. We wanted to follow the stereotypes of indie bands of the past and rock icons. We could see this consisted mostly of suits, skinny jeans, parka jackets and other general smart to smart casual wear. We looked at Thom Yorke of Radiohead, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, Pete Doherty of The Libertines and The Walkmen. The pictures below further help describe what we were looking for and hopefully we will try to match these sorts of looks as best as possible.

George


The Walkmen



Pete Doherty



Rivers Cuomo



Thom Yorke



Julian Casablancas