Production Update 2 - File Management

So yes, I have imported the clips from Thursday's performance recording session into Final Cut, and have separated them into bins based on the kinds of shots.

This may not be a conventional organisation manner, but I have my reasons - right now I am focusing solely on the performance section, and will worry about narrative later. Because of the untamed nature of my character's mentality, I want to borrow parts from as many takes as I can, to give a disjointed tone to the video. Provided they can all be chroma keyed properly, I hope to use something from each of the clips (excluding the PRODUCTIVITY files; those are ones from the green screen test montage which I imported by accident. Failure.).

-HM.

Production Update 1 - It begins...

Yesterday, as mentioned in the planning post, I started filming the performance section of the video, with assistance from Mr. N..

In terms of equipment, I decided we should approach this with a multi-camera setup; this is because I want to have multiple different angles and using multiple cameras for this is less time consuming than having to shoot each part over and over for each angle. I would usually point out that this also helps out with avoiding continuity errors, but in this case I'm actually going out of my way to avoid perfect continuity from shot to shot to represent the broken manner in which the performer sees himself (the whole light vs. dark thing).

The cameras we've used are my Bloggie which Mr. S. issued me at the start of last year that I've sort of... kept, and three more Bloggies which I borrowed from the Media Studies department.

To keep the cameras in place we used the tripods from the store room; each one of these attaches to the camera in a slightly different way which is wonderfully inconvenient... but oh well. They did what they needed to do.

I also borrowed Sir's laptop - this was used to play the song which I could use as reference when miming. A slight problem I've noticed is that in some parts I am slightly late starting; though this can easily be fixed with the "left a bit, right a bit" method in FCP.

Unfortunately as the backup of the footage is on the school computer I'm not able to put together one of those fancy raws montages like I did with the Sheena is a T-shirt Salesman raws; but I do have my Bloggie with me so enjoy these screenshots of me looking like a complete plonker.

-HM.

Initial Performance Filming Planning

This post is to keep informed regarding when I'm going to go about filming this thing.

The main framework of the video revolves around the performance sections; so these are the parts I will go about filming first. I can then go about filming the narrative sections to the appropriate lengths to 'fill in' the rest of the video.

I intend to film the performance parts in front of the green screen after school (after 16:00) today. These will be the first attempts, so I may need to refilm at a later date. Needs doing:

- Intro
- Opening verse (until "here we go buddy")
- "Do it"
- Chorus
- Verse (until "here we go buddy", again)
- "Do it"
- Chorus
- "Do it"
- Chorus
- ANGSTY ending

Whilst these are the parts which most notably need doing as per my original plan, I intend to record multiple takes of the entire song - this is so that a) it will be easier to sync up the video to audio as the takes will be about the same length as the song and b) so I have room for a bit of creative license should I decide to splice parts of performance into the narrative if the narrative doesn't seem interesting enough further down the line. I probably won't need to, but I want to keep my options open.

-HM.

Rock Video Analysis 4 - I Am the Least of Your Problems

So I intend to use a lot of dark shots during the performance segments of my video (which in my case will be done using the green screen and a dark background), so I thought it'd be a good idea to see how other artists have approached this idea.

To make up for the worrying lack of FotL in our lessons since Mr. S. left, I'll have a look at the I Am the Least of Your Problems video, as it features a lot of performance sections in a dark area.

(heads up: lots of flashing lights)

This video shows the performers in a very dark room with the only solid lighting being on the band members themselves; this is creating a really sweet intense aura which in all honesty I think is very effective in setting a dark tone. I do intend to try to create a similar tone to this in the I Am... All of Me video, though I want to use the green screen to create an artificial setting as opposed to using an actual room for the sake of exploring the uncertainty of the performer's mental state. It also gives me the chance to play around with the background to move from dark to light to enforce the conflict idea I have mentioned in previous posts.

In terms of the kinds of shots used, I feel it is useful to look at the way Falco is presented in this video as he is playing guitar and lip-syncing, as I will be. A great deal of the shots of him are close ups of his face, with only the occasional mid shot to establish that he is playing a guitar; this is something I wish to use in my video as it will help establish my performer's image (as per Goodwin's theory) by making my face recognisable (thus boosting my ego making me famous and my record label lots of money as a result of it). The occasional mid shot is necessary to show the guitar; thus satisfying one of the conventions of rock videos.

Additionally: the blinding lights. I should use these! But not in such a blinding way. My song is much slower than this song, so I do not need to have them going so fast, and ideally I'd like to have an element of randomness as to when they go off (I will use the lights to represent the 'light' side trying to break through the darkness; I want it to be a struggle so it shouldn't use any kind of consistency). This will have to be done in post production rather than through the use of actual strobe lights to avoid interfering with the chroma keyer effect.

I also want to use some of the slightly random looking cuts we see here. Again, to emphasise the struggle of light vs. the darkness, I was thinking of having very short cuts to zoomed in versions of the shot which will be lighter than the main shot - I could also potentially have the main shot in greyscale with the short 'struggle' shot showing my face in colour. I'll see what looks best when editing.

-HM.

Album Image Analysis: The 2nd Law - Muse

For the sake of developing my own digipak for my artist, it is necessary to look at the presentation for albums which will appeal to a similar target audience to my product.

The album I'm going to be marketing is a rock album, so I should look at the presentation of other rock albums. One band which have a similar audience to the audience I identified previously (older teens/young adults) are Muse, so I will look at the way their recent album "The 2nd Law" has been presented.

Here we have the front cover. The main thing that stands out to us is how dark the tone of the front cover is. Whilst there is a lot of colour used, it is done in a way which compliments this dark tone, as opposed to making it look bright and friendly. There is a lot of emphasis on the abstract imagery on this cover, which gives the impression of it being dark and mysterious; thus intriguing those of the older teen/young adult demographic.

The band logo is placed in the top left corner of the cover; this is done in a way that it stands out (thus attracting long-term fans of the band) without overshadowing the original artwork in the centre.

The album title ("The 2nd Law") has a white to red gradient pattern acting as its colouring; this seems to be for the sake of adding a touch of colour to the text for the sake of making it more aesthetically pleasing. 

Track listing on the back! Here we see the same white to red gradient which we saw on the album title on the front, which seems to be for the sake of staying consistent throughout the presentation. This strengthens the album's image, thus making it more memorable to potential consumers.

On this same point of consistency, the back cover maintains the dark tone from the front cover; this reinforces the maturity of the album, which will draw in the target audience mentioned earlier.

-HM.

Digipak Analysis: Circle Of The Oath - Axel Rudi Pell

Digipak Analysis: Band On The Run (2010) - Wings