EVALUATION Task #1: In what ways do our media products use, develop or change forms and conventions of real media products?

Task1 evaluation!

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Post-production #1

WE STARTED EDITING! 

THE MAKING OF - Peter&The Wolf

Here is a little clip from behind the scenes of our film set... I hope this achieves to give an impression of how our set looked like and an atmosphere of how we worked - efficient, joyful and professional!
Enjoy!

Call sheet

Here's our call sheets. I created them to provide a professional looking overview of the day with the order of scene we'll film and who is responsible for what as well as what times breaks are and when the actors have to be ready and stand-by.

Account #3: The Shoot - Part2

Wednesday, 23rd November

Shooting time: 10am - 4pm

Location: Leith Hill (old boarding house) interiour

Cast & Crew:

same as before

The day started with a lot of last minute procurements of props, such as a frame, loads of old looking books and other things to supply the empty house with a bit of life. Also, we wanted to shoot with two cameras and our original idea for the house part was to track the artist walking through the house and exploring it and to underline this we chose the technique of tracking with a dolly. But - the dolly is very complicated to set up which would consume a lot of time and therefore we had some discussions with our music video enabler, Luke, if we should take it our not. In the end, we followed his advise and didnt take it.... Which turned out to be okay as we still managed to create shots that conveys the feeling of following him through the rooms. 

This is a dolly:

 And this is the HD camera with tripod on 'Eazy Dolly' as dolly replacement:
(which didn't work as the floor was too bumpy making the camera shake)

Evaluation
I think this day went even better than the first shooting day. We were more organised and knew more exactly what we wanted. Also, we had two cameras and split our group in two units to film simultanously which saved a lot of time! First unit was Grace, Luke and me with the bigger camera filming the ballerina scene and 2nd unit Helena, Leyla and Matt doing the shots with Taymour.

Account #2: The Shoot - Part 1

Thursday, 17th November

Shooting time: 1 - 6pm

Location: School, filming studio

Cast: 

Taymour Williams - main solo artist

Sam Hindmarsh - hand double

Crew:

Paula - director and producer/location manager

Helena - cinematographer

Leyla - director and cinematographer

Grace - associate producer/location manager

Media guys (Luke, Matt, Scott, Dan) - Set design, lighting, cinemtographer

To relax our main artist, we started with his hand double for the CU shots of the hands playing piano to make Tay feel comfortable around the set. Here are the keys we looked up online for him -but in the end he was so good that he just listened to the song and found them out himself and even played them on a piano which didnt make a sound.

↓

Then we started to film the performance bit with Tay sitting on the piano and lipsyncing and we shot lots of different shots of performance to put in later as alternative shots. 

At one point we thought it would be cool to just turn the piano around! As you can see here.... potential for a digipak cover?! 

* pic piano tipped

About us as a team and the set atmosphere... We didn't set the roles for each of us before we began to film. But somehow our tasks and responsibilities just evolved and I think we worked quite well together, also with the media team. 

• Helena took care of the camera and the cinematography most of the time which she is really good at and has lots of experience with. She also contributed to the directing job and came up with lots of good shot ideas. 

•  I was in the directing position talking to the artist, giving him advise and some guidelines what to do, and also made myself responsible for the schedule and shot lists to check that we do everything we need in the available time. 

• Leyla was directing as well.

• Grace was busy with some late changes we made or difficulties we faced, such as supply missing props and she also took care of the playback working efficiently - as well as keeping the actor in a fun mood ;)

Evaluation

What went well?

Surprisingly, I thought a big issue would be the time management but actually that was something that was very well managed! Also, I was really pleased with our idea of scribbling on the sheet of glass infront of the camera, which looked better than I thought it would!

What was difficult?

I think, getting our solo artist into a comfortable feel infront of the camera was quite a challenge. It was our fault in some ways as we didn't spend a lot of rehearsal time with him and as he is not a singer or a musicien it is quite hard to act and sing infront of a camera infront of many people if youve havent done it before. So, that is definitely something I would address more attention if I would do it again. 

Also, our team sometimes wasn't quite the same opinion, it was 2 against 2 at some points and that just should not happen on the set, on the important day!

One of my favorite sequences... 

Account #1: The final preperations

It was Tuesday before the first half of the shoot on Thursday, 17th November and we still havent visited our location.... So this was what we did on that day - and we were very pleased!
It's an old building called 'Leith Hill' and the interiour is exactly how we wanted it to be! Here are some pics.

On Wednesday, we went to the film studio of our school which is going to be the other location to set up the set- our white box. We put in a white floor, white walls, and a white door which we both had to paint a bit whiter and carried in the piano shell which was heavy thing to do.

This was while building it....

Evaluation
What I should have done differently?
I would say, we were lucky that we loved the location because if we would have found really bad we would have had one day to sort out something else... so timing management for such an important thing should be kept an eye on.

What went well?
I enjoyed being in the process of setting up the set myself as I felt very much involved in my production than just the set designer doing everything for us and then we just come to shoot. Also, we still had influence on where to put stuff and the size of the set so that was important.

Lighting/set design

Location: Studio

We want bright lighting, almost overexposed white lighting and white walls like a white box to contrast it with the purple color we'll put on the glass and the simplicity with the piano as only prop plus the door.

I just looked at some music videos to find some more inspiration how the set and lighting should look as an end product and I found these....

1) Rihanna - 'Rockstar'

I love the lighting focusing on the strong grey and black tones which I want to come out in my video as well. I also really like how RIhannas skin looks like, almost a soft surface and a bit unnatural and shiny.

plus the strong purple like in 'Sin City' they do it with the colors.
 



Location: House, Leith Hill
In Leith Hill we are going to keep the lighting naturalistic. I want o experiment with some effects though, such as making the image into a grainy old fashioned image with some like cracks in the picture and unexpected lighting shifts to make it seem a bit dreamy and noit quite from this world, or from another time.

Seen in:
1) 'Death Proof' - Tarantino

2) Gossip Girl scene(from 0.27s)

• grainy image - the whole movie is a bit edited as an older film shot with not as developed technology cameras which gives the image something retro and old fashioned... It looks very good I think and could convey the atmosphere of the house even better. At some moments the image could be granier and at some less.

2) 'My Bluberry Nights' - Won Kar Wai

• the colors - colorful but at the same time not too bright and a bit washed out/faded, giving some warmth
• the use of paces - at some points it turns into slow motion but a fast slow motion that conveys a very intense or emotional mood. I definitely want to use that at some moments in my video in the house, all of sudden the ballerina turns and dances or he walks around the house or drops somethingt in a slower/ jumpier pace...

Mood picture...

I just found this album cover photo of Grinderman, an australian band, and thought it would suit my invented artist quite well and kind of demonstrates a mood or a meaning or maybe just a visual that could be related to 'Fortune's Fool' Peter. 

Digipak

Digipak

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Feedback

The blog is excellent with plenty of detail and a clear sense of progression from the initial idea, through the different variations and on to (what I hope is) the final concept.  There is a very clear sense of research present which feeds into comprehensive planning materials.  You have also included reflection on how feedback at various stages has had an impact on your creative direction.

James

TO DO!

Props List - Who gets what?

1.     Costumes

- skinny black boys jeans (Tay - Deadline: Fr 11thNov )

- ballerina costume (I'm making it myself - Deadline: Friday 18th Nov)

2.    Props

- purple color and pen (art department / order - Wednesday 9th)
-> try it out

- painting (Jess is making it - Deadline Monday 14th Nov)

- Ballerina box (Leyla/Grace - )

- photo of peter for cover (Grace, between 14-19th Nov)

- lantern (Paula - Deadline Monday 14th)

- flowers dead & alive (Cranleigh-Monday 21st )

Music

- lyrics to Tay

- piano chords to Sam/Freddy

Price total:

Price each: Me: £15 + £10 + £8 + £13 =£5 = £51/4= £12,75

School: shelf, books, glass, frame, chair

Shooting schedule incl. location and shot details

Locations

1. Studio as. 'asylum' or cell - where the performance takes place. 

-> Just without the soft walls!

• black piano
• a door
• sheet of glass in the front of the camera - looking through it on the studio and the artist writes on it
• pen
• color? purple - climbing up walls and glass

•  set-up #1: performance, Peter and piano
•  set-up #2: only piano keys playing by themself
•  set-up #3: Peter behind glass, writing on it
• (set-up #4: white walls getting colored/ Peter body painting, painting on glass, throwing himself on the walls, playing piano with colored hands)

Shot numbers from storyboard
1 - 10 (dissolve into house location), 12, 15, 16, 17, 31, 32, 33.




2. House, Leath Hill as. the artist's imagination/peaceful world where he is a good person and has the power of rejuvenating things and bringing 'dead' things alive again.

•  set-up #1: window, overshoulder on hands wiping the glass leaving purple hands  + purple curtains
•  set-up #2: room with ballerina, quite empty, shelf with books - fixing doll's arm, throw up, shot on legs of real ballerina landing -> leaves purple, real ballerina has color on herself, 
•  set-up #3: fireplace, rocking chair, picture -> picture hangs slanted, puts it straight and colors refresh
•  set-up #4: rotten flowers -> alive beautiful flowers: vase is fallen over with rotten flowers, puts it back up, leaves hand prints and flowers become alive
•  set-up #5: rejuvenation
•  set-up #6: rejuvenation
• set-up #7: corridor, wallpaper, door at the end+light, color on hands on walls

• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Shot numbers from storyboard

Permission letter to Grizzly Bear's record label

To Warp Records. We are a group of A Level students working on an A Level project for a qualification in Media Studies. We are writing to request permission to use the following track as part of this project: Grizzly Bear - Foreground With your permission the track would be used as the accompaniment to a short form video that is made purely for assessment purposes and will have no commercial usage. The video will be viewed only by members of the school community and the assessor of the examination board. The artist and the copyright holder will of course be fully recognised in the pre-production and evaluation material that accompanies the project. We can also include a full copyright notice if required both in the planning material and on the video itself. Yours sincerely Helena Lageder, Paula Romy Riemann, Grace Anthony and Leyla Jafarian Sabagh. Hurtwood House School

Props and costumes

Props List

Old looking Piano/ worn out stool
plain White Door
Long sheet of glass

Black board Pen
Doll

Live flowers (think about symbolism)

Dead flowers

Light (behind door)

Tea & Teacup

Paint (for walls)
Body paint

Fruit
Rotten fruit
Clingfilm?

Rocking chair
Comfy chair
Curtains
Painting/Old frame

Black skinny jeans
Wolf hat
Strawberry chupa chup

 

Costumes

location house:

• white Ballerina Tutu making it look rough, bit dirty, used... + bare legs + point shoes 

   

• him: black boots with laces (see above)
• black skinny jeans
• black jacket 'army style' with collar
• white T-shirt

location studio:

• black skinny jeans
• navy long sleeve jumper with white stripes
• bare feet

Cast - Who's our Peter?

I think about our artist as a good looking, rather dark haired, tall, skinny boy around 19-22 years old who represents his style of music (indie), vulnerability and a hint of crazy- or weirdness while having some sort of sex appeal. 

This is how he could look like:  
I was thinking of calling asos.com and see if that model is available;)

And then here is a German musician whose looks and the mood of the CD covers represent what I think matches our hypothetical artist!

So we tried to find some boys in our school to cast and these two are the options:

1)  Walter Daley

2) Taymour Williams

The Ballerina

Me

is probably going to be danced by myself. We want a classic ballerina but not in the standard tutu. (More about that in 'costumes'-post.

Storyboard Animatic + Evaluation

Here is my group's storyboard but filmed and accompanied with the original track. In that way we can see how long every shot lasts and how it could look overrall to eventually change weaknesses and anything that doesnt really work or looks right...

I think in our storyboard, the strenghts are the musicality and it provided us with a clear structure of the whole video which is a relive and a help. But I think we still need to think of more concrete ideas about actions in the house related to our theme 'dead - alive'.

Also we think that the use of color should only be in the studio which is a bright white room so the effect would be better than using color in the house where we have already have existing colors.

In terms of editing, I really enjoyed editing the animatic, but I just like editing and Final Cut Pro. It was a very simple editing process and we didn't have any problems. The opposite actually, I think editing and putting all the drawn shots together inspired Helena and me for shot ideas and how to film what at what times in the music and the whole thing became a bit more visual and real for us.

Overrall, I learned from this task how to shoot a storyboard and just learned the fact that you make these storyboard animatics before you film the real thing, because I didnt know that before...

Development from original idea: Storyboard#2