FILMING

Using the time management plan that I made for February, I decided that the optimal time to film my video was the February half term. This is because I won't be in college therefore I'll have a lot more time on my hands to be able to dedicate a slot to film. Getting access to my main character will also be easier during the holidays, as long as neither of us have other commitments such as work. I asked my manager for my shifts (and asked Jonny to do the same) and found out that the two days that we were both free to film were the Tuesday and the Thursday.

The weather on the Tuesday was exactly what I wanted so I was really pleased as this meant I wouldn't have to reschedule to another day. It was slightly brighter than I wanted however I thought that I would see how the footage turned out, and if it was too bright I could edit the brightness/contrast when in Premiere Pro. Having previously visited the location and taken various stills of shots that I wanted to create and created a storyboard based on this, I was able to make a quick start to make the most of the daylight before it started to get dark, which was increasingly earlier at this time of year.

The images below show me setting up on location with the camera and tripod, which I also extended for a number of my shots in order to reach the height that I was looking for.

RESOURCES NEEDED

In order to film my video, the main piece of equipment that I will need is a camera. Over the Christmas period I took home two regular video cameras as no one else needed them, to have a play around and perhaps do some filming if I got the chance. The weather posed as a serious road block for filming, however the when messing around with the camera, I discovered that the quality wasn't very good at all, and both cameras had trouble focusing.

Because of this, I decided to hand those cameras back in and ask my Media teacher whether or not there was a DSLR that I could use to film, as I wanted to achieve as good quality footage as possible. I was able to get my hands on a Canon EOS 1100D;

I have previous experience using a DSLR as an assistant to a wedding photographer, so getting to know the camera was relatively easy. Taking a few practice clips in my garden, I was able to familiarise myself with the features, and ensure that I had the necessary skills to be able to get on with filming on location. As well as the camera, I also took out a tripod, as a lot of my proposed shots were static, therefore filming on a tripod removes any threat of wobbly footage, which is something that I definitely don't want.

INSPIRATION - Imagine Dragons' 'Radioactive' video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktvTqknDobU

I discovered 'Radioactive' by Imagine Dragons after it was used heavily in the TV advertisements for Assassin's Creed III. (It has since be used to advertise a newer film, 'The Host', based on the book by Stephenie Meyer, the author of The Twilight Saga books - possibly very popular with the age of my target audience.) I liked it, so I searched for it on YouTube and obviously discovered the original video. Like many modern music video, it is more like a short film, with the band either featuring in the narrative or clips of them playing (in the same setting) are used. In these terms, the video is nothing like mine, however it was the opening that caught my eye.

It features a girl simply walking from A to B, quite a monotonous event, which the director of this video has combated by their use of various different shots. They keep the events interesting, and instead of simply watching a girl walk, the viewer is prompted to wonder where she is going, and why she is going, made more mysterious by her choice of clothing and the covered box that she is carrying.

Use of focus - As you can see, this shot sees the girl walking towards the camera which is located on the groud, with the leaves in the forefront in soft focus, and the girl approaching from the background in focus. I really like the way that this shot has been put together and I plan to use a similar effect on the shots of Jonny playing the guitar, with the neck of the guitar in focus, and Jonny out of focus whilst he plays.

Worm's view - As she walks towards the camera, a worm's view shot has been used whereby the camera is low and tilted up towards the character. I think this looks really effective as it gets the trees into the shot, and creates a great contrast between the branches and the sky. Trees are a huge part of my video, so being able to create a shot like this where both my character and the trees are in full view is great inspiration for me when I come to film.

INSPIRATION - Birdy's 'Shelter' video

One of the videos that I have already mentioned as an inspirational text was the video for 'Shelter' by Birdy. Many aspects of this video appealed to me, so I wanted to go into a bit more detail about those.

Walking away from/towards the camera - This was definitely something that I wanted to include, as shown in my storyboard, however this video gave me further inspiration of how I could execute this to make it look effective and project my intended emotions to my target audience. In her music video for Shelter, Birdy is the only person who appears, similar to my concept of focusing the video on the male character. There are numerous shots where she is simply walking toward or away from the camera, looking back in a sorrowful way to make it clear to her audience what she is feeling. The dull tones of the lighting add to this, creating a very somber atmosphere which is further emphasized by the melancholy lyrics.

Use of a musical instrument (links to Anthony Goodwin's theories) - As the screen shot shows, Birdy includes shots of her playing a piano in her video for 'Shelter', which have obviously been synced to the audio in order to make her appear to be playing the melody. This is a shot that I planned to include in my video, whereby the image and the audio were properly synced, linking them together to take away from the somewhat disjointed style of my narrative. However instead of a piano I planned to use a guitar, as the male that I plan to feature in my video as the main character is a skilled guitar player and is willing to learn my proposed song to enable me to vary my shot types and give another dimension to my artist.

STORYBOARD

Before filming, I wanted to make sure that I was prepared and knew exactly what I needed from the shoot, to ensure that I made the most of the time with my character. To do this, I created a rough storyboard which illustrates the shot types that I wanted and the way that I would film. The shots aren't in order, as my video doesn't follow a very strong, obviously chronological storyline, they are simply showing what I aim to achieve.

Because my video doesn't follow a strict narrative, I plan for it to be a random compilation of many different shots that all combine to give a subtle 'break-up' story line  with the narrative coming from the male's point of view. Having more close ups will give an emotive look into how the male feels about the relationship and how he wants it to end, even though he knows it will be hard.

LOCATION RE-THINK - Backhouse Park

As soon as I made the decision to rethink my location, I knew the exact park where I would be able to film. It is my local park that I grew up in as a child, called Backhouse Park. It's literally minutes away from my house, meaning that I had easy access to it and could get there quickly to take advantage of the weather (which has been terrible, so even just dry days are rare).

The location provides A LOT more props/things for me to work with, such as a small stream, a bridge, many staircases, a dried up fountain and plenty of benches. Furthermore, because it's a park, it has paths, which makes setting up a level tripod far easier than it would have been on the uneven terrain of a wood/forest.

LOCATION RECCE

Knowing that I wanted to film in a natural setting, I started considering different locations that I felt would work well for my video. With the main character of my video, Jonny, I went to a small wood in my local area to try taking some quick test shots to assess whether or not that location would work for me.

Although I quite liked the location, there wasn't much to work with. Because it was simply a wooded area, there were no paths, benches or any other on location props that I could incorporate into my video. I knew that I definitely still wanted to have trees as a main part of my video as I especially like how the trees look at this time of year without any leaves, so I decided that in order to have both trees and other pre-existing props, I would be much better off filming my video in a park.

CHARACTER PROFILES

JONNY AKA "JONATHAN GRAY"
The main character in my video will be Jonathan Gray, the album artist and the boy featured on my improved magazine advertisement and inside digipak. The reason I chose this name was simply because it is my chosen actor's actual name and I felt that a longer first name and shorter second name looked effective on my print work. 
I chose Jonny to be in my video as he relates closely to my target audience in several ways;

• He obviously embodies the 'Indie/Alternative' style, ensuring that my target audience can relate to the main character of my video in terms of clothing/hairstyle.
• He is a guitarist/writer in an Alternative band formally called 'We Beat The System' and recently re-named 'CHILD', so he could understand my concept easily and give his own input from his musical background. 
• He is attractive, appealing to the female population of my target audience.
• He is 19, an age which falls in the middle of the age range of my target audience. He isn't too old as to not appeal to the prospective younger audience, and isn't too young as to not be taken seriously by older audience members.

Basically, I feel that he 'looks the part', and because he is my boyfriend, I can easily work around our college/work schedules to find time that we can use to film. I can also really rely on him, which I may not have been able to do if I was using a friend. 

The image used on the inside of my digipak

MYSELF AKA "THE GIRLFRIEND/SOON-TO-BE EX"
As my storyboards will explain, I didn't want to involve the female very much in the video, as I wanted it to revolve around the male character. Because of this, I decided that it would be MUCH easier and convenient to use myself as the female character. All of my proposed shots that involved the girl were to be filmed using a tripod, meaning that I could set up the shot, press record and then run into the shot and simply cut off the beginning of the clip when I came to edit. 

The reason that I have chosen song/location/genre is because I think of myself as being a part of that Indie/Alternative group, and I feel that the way I dress/look reflects this. I don't wear a lot of make up, my hair is natural (slightly dip-dyed after this photo was taken - popular with my target audience) and I plan to dress in a way that makes my target genre obvious, and doesn't become confused with other genres.

INSPIRATIONAL TEXTS - video

Here are a few examples of music videos that I feel relate closely to my choice of song and approach to my video. There are various aspects of each video which I am inspired by and hope to learn from/encapsulate in my video such as camera and editing techniques, locations and lighting.

Birdy - Shelter

This is one of my favourite songs, originally by The xx, covered by Birdy. The video for this song is very much like what I have proposed to create for 'Please Let Me Go', my chosen track, although I do not intend to copy it.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have chosen a very natural location, such as a park or a forest so this video is very helpful for me to see how I could make best use of this location. Furthermore, the lighting in the video is also quite similar to how I want to light my video however the 'feel' of my chosen song requires a ever so slightly lighter atmosphere. Clips in this video such as 0:20 shows how something as simple as walking can be given emotion by being slowed down slightly, which is a technique I plan to use in the editing of my video. I also want to use the slow motion effect on the scenes in which the narrating character will actually mouth the lyrics.

Another part of this video that I like and would like to incorporate into my video is the part when Birdy holds her hand up towards the sun, blocking out the light and letting it shine through her fingers. I think that this would be effective in a scene where my two characters could be touching hands in the air and the let go of each other with the sun shining between the hands, or something along those lines. 

Ellie Goulding - Guns and Horses

This video, like Shelter is also set in a forest however it is inspirational in different ways than the  previous video. Artists have to be careful not to over-act and make their lyrics cheesy, which I feel Ellie Goulding has done. Some of the hand gestures she makes, along with the zombie solider dancers make the video as a whole quite cringe-worthy, which I feel a video revolving around a romantic narrative has the possibility of being. Therefore this video has shown me some of the "don'ts" that I need to be aware of when directing my characters. 

'So the lion fell in love with the lamb...' - Twilight

This clip is from the movie Twilight and is the clip where they say one of the most famous quotes from the film. It is a very romantic scene in its own way, and is quite climatic as all of the previous scenes have been leading up to this moment where Bella reveals she knows Edward is a vampire. The costume choices and lighting choices of my video reminded me of Twilight and also the location as it is similar to this scene. When I watched it on YouTube there was a particular part of the clip which I thought would be really effective for my video. It is at 2:22 and shows Bella backed up against a large tree with Edwards arms imprisoning her, and gradually him releasing her in a defeated manor, which ties in well with the narrative of my video.

INITIAL LOCATION/LIGHTING IDEAS

The location that I have chosen for my video is a forest, or a area with lots of trees. This is because of the natural feel that I think the song has, and a forest is somewhere I picture it to be set when listening. As well as the trees, I want to perhaps find a location that has some other items in it like a bench or a broken down wall etc. If I only have my characters walking around a forest, they won't have anything to interact with, so these items would be ideal.

The image above is a secondary sources that I found online, which illustrates what I want to capture in my video in terms of lighting. I really love the way light shines through trees at a certain time of day, as shown in these images. The way it shines would enable me to capture the shot that I have previously talked about, inspired by a shot in Birdy's 'Shelter' video. The light is shining through her fingers, which is similar to the effect I want to create with my characters, in which the light is shining through their fingers as they hold hands then serparate.

Furthermore, my location will allow me to make the two characters the focal point of the video, without any background distractions that would occur in a street or a very public place.