Music Video Props

Hey folks,

I thought it'd be a good idea to make a note of the props which I've made use of so far in the I Am... All of Me music video. These are actually surprisingly limited given the fact that it's a four minute video, though when you consider that props are usually more necessary to aid a narrative, and my video is performance heavy (as per my research into existing rock videos) it makes a bit more sense as to why.

Black Knight guitar

I've used this for the performance shots in the video. This is purely to conform to one of the rock video conventions I found from the videos I've researched, in that emphasis is placed on the performer playing guitar.

Why have I used this particular guitar then? It's because it's quite similar in design, and more importantly sound output, to the guitars Jun Senoue (the guitarist in Crush 40) is known for playing.

As one of Goodwin's conventions is that there should be a link between what we see and what we hear, I thought it'd be appropriate to use a guitar which if played by a competent musician could produce a similar kind of tone to that heard on the track.

Mobile phone

This is used by Stephen in one of the narrative "chapters". I thought having the victim character talk on the phone would be effective as it shows him as being preoccupied (talking to his friend), therefore being no direct threat to the main character. This emphasises the fact that the conflict between the two is purely one-sided, which further brings up the main point of the narrative: that the main isn't exactly mentally stable.

-HM.

Production Planning - Narrative Direction

Thought I should make a post about some of the factors involved in terms of people, location and direction.

Locations:

• Street - there's a street near where I live which is quite built up, which will be suitable for the first confrontation.
• Local park - Cedars. There are several spots here which will fit the right "quiet, but not private" feel I want for the second meeting. In particular, an area in the back field with a lone bench.
• Alley - there is an alley near my house, with a corner which goes off to a road. This could work well for the third confrontation where my character shoves the other character out of the way.

People:

• Myself - actor, as the lead character.
• Stephen - actor, as the victim character.
• Chris - cameraman.

-HM.

Production Update 6 - Performance filming mk.ii.

So yes, on 17th January I had another stab at getting the performance element of the video filmed, after the unsuccessful green screen experimentation.

With many thanks to Mr. N. for staying around after school for several hours to help me film.

I think the main problem here is that we overestimated how much work we'd have to do to block out the outside light to get the right dark aesthetics, and therefore made it too dark to be usable. The preview screen on the Bloggies seems to show the footage much different to how it actually turns out; so it appeared to be usable as we were filming.

Because of the whole dark concept I'd been going for, it seemed like it'd be necessary to completely black out the room and use only lighting from a small torch for the shots - whilst filming this footage, we used this SUPER PROFESSIONAL dark room setup in the media suite in school:

Yes, that is black paper over the windows. Lots and lots of black paper. Too much black paper.

As mentioned in the video, the strobe light shots could potentially be usable. We have since refilmed the performance once again; however the footage for those is on the cameras and computer in school so I don't have access right now to put together an analysis montage for that footage. It will follow during the week!

-HM.