Shoot Day

The shoot date of my music video of 'La la la' by 'The Bird and the Bee' was on Tuesday 26th November. We started filming at 10 am, after setting up the studio and making sure the cast were ready with full make-up, hair and costume. The set we used was a simple design that used two sofas, bed sheets and 'girly' items such as flowers, feathers, fairy lights and cushions. We carried in two sofas into the studio and put them on their sides to make a 'den' like creation for the girls. We then covered it in a bed sheet and the girly items. We set up the projector and linked it to the laptop that played the patterns that were continuously projected on the girls and sheets. We then filmed the girls from different angles in the 'den' laughing and lip syncing. However, we only filmed in close-up and mid close-up to show the intimacy that we wanted to create in the video.





One of the 'girly' items was pink netting; we discovered that this was created an interesting under water style effect when placed over the projector. It appeared as though the camera was underwater and created an delusional 'hippy' type feel that we wanted to create for the video, we then captured this on camera.

We then changed the set, making a tunnel of white material using a bed sheet and a fan. We then filmed the girls lip-syncing lying down in the tunnel, once with Lizzy in the foreground and then with Catherine in the background. We then set up four poles and hung sheets on them to look like a tent style white background and hung fairy lights around it. We filmed with this set up on a mid closeup and a closeup. We then filmed just the girls bodies with no background and projected the patterns onto the girl's white dresses and filmed them one at a time dancing and turning. After lunch, the girls then changed clothing from white dresses to cosmic style tops and Catherine wore a velvet skirt and Lizzy wore velvet leggings. We hung the sheets from the ceiling using rope and a ladder to attach them to the lighting rig. We filmed one girl at a time holding a sheet in each hand and waving them about at a slow pace whilst lip syncing. I thought these shots were particularly effective because the projection and the girl's make-up stood out particularly here. We then used this sheet set up by filming Catherine walking into the sheets and Lizzy walking out.


Gina thought of this shot on the shoot day and I felt it was particularly effective as it would make the audience consider are they twins or are they not. We then filmed them in slow motion from a birds eye view throwing them in the air on a bed sheet. We were assisted in holding a corner of the bed sheet, with each girl on it, feathers and flowers. We also filmed them each lying on the sheet and filmed them from a birds eye view lip syncing and then in slow motion with them both together as feathers were thrown onto their faces. We then packed up and returned the props we used, swept the floor and made sure the studio was left in the same way it was before we built the set.






As it was only me and Gina in a group, therefore was a lot of different jobs to do on the shoot day. I was in charge of making sure that what was being filmed looked good on the monitor, keeping the projector playing the images, making sure that the red light to stop people entering the television studio was switched on when filming and was also in charge of playback, which is when the song is played every time something is filmed so the girl's could lip-sync to it. Gina took photographs during the shoot day, she was also in charge of making sure the girls new what they were doing during the shoot and although I set up the different sets too, she had a more vital role in this process. We both handled the camera work also.
Camera work was especially important in our pop video as we did everything free hand.










We did not use a tripod during our video as we feet that would limit us and we wanted to have the sense of free spirit and energy in our video. We used the Sony NX5 to film our video, which I felt was an appropriate camera to use as wasn't to heavy to camera and delivered a quality image. We used this camera to take many different shots in all angles using different settings and lighting effects. We did this to make the video fast moving, dream-like and colourful.

We used different lighting effects and haze during the shoot day, to make the video seem more surreal and psychedelic. We used bright blonde lighting to light the girls from the front for a dreamy atmospheric quality. We also used coloured green and blue lighting at times again, to give a dream like, supernatural effect on the girls and the backdrop. We also used patterned 'gobos' that were patterned with horizontal lines and span around, to give a sense of a dream taking over reality. We also used projection of firework type lights that were projected onto the girls, their clothes and the set. Lights were very important because the backdrop, their costume and the idea was not complicated that lights were needed to bring out the dream like, surreal qualities of the video.There were no problems on the actual shoot day, it went to plan, giving us an hour to eat lunch and the girls performed to a high standard. However, the leading up to the shoot day, especially the day before the shoot was very problematic. Due to Gina and I unable to find a suitable amount of cast that were able to attend the shoot date, we decided on a new idea the day before the shoot.


Much of our energy and time was spent into trying to get cast to be available for the shoot day, however it was very difficult finding older people that were free due to work commitments, lived close enough, were not offended by the subject matter and were comfortable enough to perform. Many people initially said they would be available but as the shoot day became closer they realised they had other commitments. We asked teachers to be cast members instead, however, we did not feel it would be as effective as they did not look old enough. Therefore, the day before the shoot we decided to re-think the idea. We did not change the idea completely, but decided not to focus on the narrative elements of the video, but the performance elements.






We decided that we would only use the two girls in the bad and we thought the concept of the video could be them coming back from an exiting day, perhaps meeting a boy. The video would show the feelings of excitement and girliness with lights and pink items. We thought this would be an appropriate idea as the song appears to be surreal and has a 'girly' atmosphere about it. We also thought this would be appropriate as it is not a challenging but simple idea to carry out and as we only had one day to plan for it, this was important.

Therefore, we were limited to what we could achieve on the shoot day, as we only had one day to find things for our video and could not buy items previous to the shoot. However, we overcame this problem because our idea was simple. I borrowed fairy lights and cushions from friends and we had previously purchased feathers for our initial idea. Gina also purchased bunches of flowers and we brought in all the 'girly' items we had for the shoot. Also, Gina and I had spent allot of money and time finding and buying appropriate props for the initial idea. Therefore, we had to refund pink paint, wallpaper and bedroom stickers. We had also previously rented out and set up the cinema chairs for the cinema scene, which were no longer needed.

One shot I feel worked particularly well was a shot we created when the girls sat on sofas that were placed on their sides. We placed a keyboard in their and put fairy lights on it. Catherine played keyboard whilst Lizzy lip-synced. I thought this was especially effective as it gave a performance element to the shoot but it was not as the audience would expect. We used jouissance as they audience would expect Catherine to be playing keyboard on a stand standing up. However she played the instrument sitting down whilst she looked up at the camera. Although, Catherine was not playing the right notes, the shot brought out the dream like atmosphere we wanted to create. As it created a sense that they were in a 'magical' den and they were relaxed and happy in their 'dream world'.


Another shot I thought worked particularly well was when we made a small tent style set out of white bed sheets and the girls sat inside in lip-syncing. We placed the projector and the camera in a gap in the sheets and hung the fairy lights inside the tent. I felt this was effective as the projection was incredibly clear on the sheet in the background. I feel this shot helped highlight the element of fantasy we wanted to create in the overall video.

One shot I feel did not work very well was where the girls layed on the bed and the camera was shot from a birds eye view but on close-up of them. It was effective when they layed still and lip-synced; however we tried to roll them from either side of the sheet using two helpers and us to hold each corner of the sheet and move it back and fourth. However, this did not look good because the movement of each girl looked slightly awkward whilst rolling and them moving in and out of shot was not incredibly effective.

Overall, I honestly feel the shoot day could not have gone better. Considering we had one day to sort out our props, set, lighting and idea we pulled the shoot off very well. I feel the fact we only had one day, gave us a creative advantage as it meant the shots were not as formulaic and structured but had the free and dreamlike quality we wanted the video to posses. Every element of the shoot day went particularly smooth, from the setting up of the projector to the cast being especially good at taking direction. Therefore, we had time to film a large amount footage, with different costume, set, camera free hand movement and angles. Meaning that, we will have many different shots to chose from in the editing process, making it much easier and therefore creating a better finished product.

Permissions Letter

HURTWOOD HOUSE
HEADED PAPER

Head of Copyright - Blue Note Music 23rd September 2010
EMI Records
E M I House
43 Brook Green
London
W6 7EF
U.K.


Dear Sir or Madam

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:

'La la la' - The Bird and the Bee

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

Alexandra Hall and Gina Mitchel

Hurtwood House School

The structure of the music industry

The music industry dominates popular culture; music influences the way people behave and look. For example; the male in the left picture would steroetypically listen to hardcore metal, 'emo' music such as "Bring me the Horizon".

There are four trans-national corporations that are known as ‘The Majors’ that own the largest percentage of the music industry. These are, ‘Universal’, ‘Sony/BMG’, ‘Warner Bros’ and ‘EMI’. However, the structure of the music industry is not hierarchal as such with ‘The Majors’ at the top of the structure, as most majors also own, or license small companies in order to reach all audiences. For example, ‘Universal’ own ‘Verve Records’ an American Jazz record label. These companies are known as the ‘Major-independents’.

The music industry is structured as a ‘web’ of companies. These companies are made up of big companies such as ‘Majors’ and ‘major-independents’, the web of connections allow these to gain connections to new artists to move into popular music. Smaller companies are known as ‘independents’ that have little or no financial connection to the four major companies. The web of connections allows these smaller companies to gain access to bigger markets and popular music.

My pop video, is 'La la la' by the alternative band The Bird and the Bee. They are signed by independent jazz music corporation, 'Blue Note' records. These are not owned by one of the major trans-national corporations and have no financial connection with these also. This means that the video would not have much financial back up for the creation of the music video.
The music industry itself is linked to different media platforms such as radio, TV, Print media, Film, New Media. This created synergy and symbiosis between these media platforms. For instance, music is played on the radio, which can be listened to now online and on television. Music is also linked to film; in a way that soundtracks are an important part of feature films and can be bought on their own.

The Bird and the Bee were featured on the soundtrack for 'Sex and the City' with a cover of 'How deep is your love?' by the Beegees. This is how I found out about The Bird and the Bee, not due to a promotional music video.

All popular music when released must have a music video. A music video serves a number of different functions. They are important in the promotion process of an artist's single and normally their album. The content of the music video and how the artist is shown in the video creates or adapts their 'star image'. It entertains an audience on it's own. There are all different music video channels on television promoting different music genres. The can also be viewed o the internet on the artist's website or on websites such as 'youtube'.
My music video promotes my band, that is made up of two girls. They wear indie, bohemian style clothing, to represent them as quirky and individual characters.

There are four elements that make up a music video. These are, performance; this includes the singer lip syncing and the band playing their instruments. Narrative, this is a storyline element to a video that could be performed by the singer/band itself or other actors. Thematic, this is what the video is about and must follow the genre of the music. For example, a rock band would probably not feature a dance break with girls as maybe an club style song would. For example; Arctic Monkey's video here is just the rock band performing with their instruments. This is so the video appeals to the target market, who will buy the song. Symbolic is the last element that uses symbolism to put over a message to an audience or reinforce the meaning of the song.
I have these elements in my pop video. The band is featured in a performance element that is filmed in the television studio. This shows the synth player, playing her instrument and the singer lip syncing. There is also a narrative element, that features members of the elder generation in teenage situations.

The music video does have current threats facing it, and in some ways they are becoming defunct and irrelevant. The music industry has been facing threats from the internet for some time due to many available websites to download music for free. There are now so many easy ways to promote an artist through the intent, such as artist websites and interviews. This is mug cheaper promotion than a pop video, and with the threats from lack of finance through music, these ways of promotion can be more effective.

call sheet

The call sheet is the most important document on the shoot day. It is designed to enable all crew members to be organised and allow the cast members to know what they are doing, so the operations of the day run smoothly. A copy of the call sheet is given to each member of the cast and the crew. The call sheet contains different parts, including:


Production team - This is a list of all the people who are involved in the production. It also has a list of their roles within the production and a way of a means of contact, for example their mobile telephone number. This is in case they weren’t there on the shoot day, you would still have access to things they may have organised or dealt with.



Cast List Page - This is a list of all the cast you are using within your production. It also shows the roles that they will have in your shoot, what times they will be needed on set and what they need to do in their performance.



Studio set plan - This is a description of what will be used in the mise-en-scene; for example, in our case the fairy lights, the sofas ect. It also includes a birds eye view of the set so that it can be quickly and easily made on the shoot day.


Lighting Plan - The same principle as the set plan but it shows the lighting that will be used and the areas that light will be, showing ar

eas that requires it to be well lit.



Props list - a list of the props that are needed. It also included where the props are going to be sourced; for example, we sourced the feathers from the website 'Ebay'.



Wardrobe - This is a list of the garments of clothing that are to be worn on the shoot day, in what shots and who is wearing them at which points.


Shooting Schedule- This is a guide to what is going to be shot during the day and in what order. The storyboard is used to state which times which shot will be done. This will allow for breaks.


Storyboard - this is a very precise shot by shot guide of what is going to be shot. It includes timing and edit transactions. It is done against all the timings of the song, using the timeline to make sure you can fit everything in.

Set Build and Lighting Design

The pop video our group wishes to create consists of four sets. This includes; a teenage girl’s bedroom, interior of a cinema, a bingo hall, and the performance studio space for the band. We decided that we would not have any of the sets on location. This is because we would not have full control of the location. For example, if we had chosen to film the teenage bedroom scene in a teenage bedroom we would have encountered problems. Firstly, we would have limited choice over the bedrooms we could choose. We would have to use a boarding room which is a lot more plain and less ‘girly’ than an average girls room if they were living at home. Also, we would not be able to change the wall paper, carpet, posters, bed spread and furniture to our desires, because we cannot damage a person’s bedroom. In the studio however, we have complete freedom over how the bedroom looks and we feel the overall impact of the scene will be greater and more positive. However, deciding to build each set in the studio does draw up some problems.

Firstly we would have four changeovers during the shoot day. This means that there is very limited time shoot as there will be time taken away from changing the set around. Also another problem we will face is that in the studio near the beginning of the video, a large amount of feathers fly down from the ceiling. This means that we will have to shoot this last and the band has to perform perfectly and not look tired and warn out from the day of filming. Also, this will have to be done in one shot as it would take to much time to sweep the feathers up and bring them back down. Also, when they fall onto the studio floor they may get dirty, which could ruin the overall effect of the features. Another problem we faced was that our initial idea for the studio space was that the background was going to be white. We thought this connoted free spirit and youth than any other colour. However, when the feathers fall, they will not show up. Therefore we had to re-think the colour to black, which we feel does not have the same impact, however we feel the feathers are more important that the colour of the set.

Another problem that occurred was how we would design the different studio set up’s in a way that looks real and not ‘tacky’. Neither of my group had ever been to a bingo hall, so we had to deign it based on pictures on the interest. We do have doubts that the younger generation may not be clear on a bingo hall as we were and therefore the idea may not click straight away. Also, we have to set the studio up to look like a cinema, with only the aid of four cinema seats and a projector. This would be very easy to manage. However, we have close-ups and mid shots of the couple sat on the cinema seat. Therefore, we needed to design the set and place the camera in a way that tricks the audience in believing there are more people in the cinema.

The decision to use multiple OAP men and women in my music video was an incredibly challenging decision to make. Most of the music videos only cast students from Hurtwood for their video. We had to write a formal letter to a local amateur dramatics society. Luckily we had some positive responses and have had the chance to cast five members of the Ewhurst players. Our peers have also helped by asking their grandparents if they would appear in the video.

We then had to design the lighting plan for the set build. This was a rather simple task as we decided we would want natural lighting in the sets to make the bedroom, Bingo Hall and Cinema look real. We followed the simple set up for a studio making sure everything would be lit the same to make it seem professional but also realistic.

Design Plans

A design plan is an illustration that sets out what the set will look like, on location will look like and what the lighting will be. A director uses a design plan; so that they can clearly show the set designers and builders what the set will look like. This is useful so that the set will look exactly how the director wants it to look and so that it properly communicates the ideas and themes that the director wanted it to.

A design plan is also a helpful tool for the creators of the set because it is a guide of how much space the set builders have in the studio and on location. This is so they are aware in a practical manor what will and what will not fit in the space. All aspects of overall design are included in the design plan. This includes the furniture that will be used on set, the instruments, the backdrop, the lighting, camera movement and where the camera will be placed.

My group drew three design plans that consisted on three design plans and a lighting plan. The three design plans, consisted of the bedroom, the cinema and the bingo hall. The design plan was an effective tool for my group. This is because I feel we set it out in an understandable fashion and we carefully explain each elements of the deign plan to the set designer ‘Dan’. Without the aid of the design plan, Dan would not be aware to the full extent of how the group wants the set to look and this means that it will damage the final product.

Cinema Plan: Bingo Hall Plan:

Bedroom Plan:

Camera Test

A camera test is an important and very useful tool. It enables the director to see what the actors look like on screen and whether they express what the director wants to achive. People appear differently on camera then they do in person; some people who may have the exact look the director wants but don't look right on camera.

Another positive about the camera test is that it allows the director to know how well the actors take direction. If the actors do not listen to direction they are told or appear awkward and shy the director may consider replacing them.

For our camera test we recorded the cast talking and laughing and shot them at all angels, (front, side and back). The girls we camera tested for our video I feel were a sucsess. They took direction well, but also had fun and enjoyed it which came across on film.

Unfortunatley, I could not upload the camera test as it was deleted from the system before I could upload it onto Youtube.