FILMING DIARY...

DAY ONE-
Today was our first day of filming and we were scheduled to film the outdoors walking scene. For this scene we went to a local area called Newarke Street which is a pedestrianised walkway which is quite old fashioned. We thought this was a good location as it wasn't too busy but still urban enough for the music video. Equipment we took included two cameras and a steering wheel (a handheld tripod which steadies the camers) and ipad. We found that using minimal equipment was easier for us than as we had to move with the actress as she walked down the street. We used the Ipad to play the music so that our actress could lip sync in time with the music and we wouldn't have issues with it whilst editing. The benefit of using two cameras meant we could capture the same thing from different angles and this cut down our filming time as we got the footage a lot quicker. Our footage include long shots, close up shots, tracks and pans from all angle of our artist as she walked down the street. The ending was also filmed today as we found an old fashioned lamp post which was perfect for her to end the song in front of. We hope that we have the right footage for our music video and are looking forward to filming in the studio tomorrow.


DAY TWO...
Today we filmed the black studio scene. We used a local studio who we knew the owner off so were able to use it for free. The studio was a white room with different backgrounds which we changed to a black one. We also put black fabric on the floor so that shots including her feet would not look out of place. We took the big photography lights with us as we had previously found that these created the effect that we wanted. We took two of these. One to light from the front and one from the back to create the bright light effect behind her head. We once again took two camera and were able to film from different angles at the same time which will give us more footage. We also took the steering wheel and a tripod. We mainly used the steering wheel as we wanted to create the unsteady camera look that if often seen in performance parts of our video. The day went well and we got a lot of footage that will be very good for our video.

DAY THREE...
Today we filmed the scenes in the pub and in the living room and kitchen of one of our groups house. We firstly went to the pub where had previously asked permission to film and then we filmed the pool table and bar shots. The equipment we took for this included two cameras and the steering wheel. We used two cameras once again to shoot from two different angles to ensure that we had everything we need. The steering wheel was used to just steady the camera during the moving shots. Shots includes long shots, closeups, pans and tracks of both of the actors included in our music video. We used the same equipment for the scene in the house, however we had to change the location a little to make it look more like a couples house rather than a family house. This just ment lighting candles and moving toys and other things that may represent children. We are pretty certain that we have all of the footage that we need for our music video now and are excited to start post production.

This is our shooting schedual for filming. Now we have conducted our researh and planning we aim to be filming very soon.

Week beginning 12th November 
Finish planning and prepare for filming,ensuring everything is ready for the first location. 

Week beginning 19th december

- Tuesday 20th - New Walke Street (morning)

- Wednesday 21st - Black Screen Studio (3pm onwards)

- Friday 23rd - Pub (afternoon)
                  - Beth's house - kitchen and living room (afternoon onwards)


Checklist:

New Walke:
- 2 Canon digital cameras
- Steering wheel camera holder
- Tripod
- Casual/pretty costume

Black Screen Studio:
- 2 Canon digital cameras
- Steering wheel camera holder
- 2 tripods
- torches
- Microphone
- Microphone stand

Narration locations:Pub:
- 2 Canon cameras
- Steering wheel
- Tripod

Changes...

After doing our audience research we changed our concept. We found that our original idea was quite boring and repetitive and this is what we didn't want. Therefore, we decided to add a narrative element into our piece and we chose to get rid of one of the performance sections. We wanted to keep the black background so we could experiment with strong lighting so we decided on dropping the white performance scene. We also wanted to keep the walking scene as this was our original concept.

For our narrative, we have decided to do flashbacks of the artist and a male before they split up. This allows the audience to have an insight into what the song is about. We have chosen to do three different flashbacks...

1. In a pub where they are playing pool.

2.In a living room where they are watching tv.

3.In a kitchen where they are eating dinner.

We wanted the performance of our piece to be the strongest part and therefore the chorus of the piece is mainly the performance parts.

Health and Safety...

This is our discussion on what health and safety issues we need to take into consideration when filming our music video.

More audience feedback on animatic storyboard...

This feedback was positive.  They once again like the faced past changing of the shots as other audience members told us. They liked the overall concept of the music video and thought that it fitted well with the lyrics and feel of the song. With costume, they said they would like to see it simple rather than constantly changing throughout. This is as it would make it easier for them to follow and not make the audience disorientated.

After listening to what our target audience has to say we have decided that we need to make some changes to our original idea to make it more appealing to our demography. Changes we need to make include...

changing the pace

adding narrative 

more movement of the artist

However, there are some parts we are going to keep the same such as the fast paced shot changes.

Animatic storyboard plus audience feedback

The video above shows both our Animatic storyboard and some negative comments on the work. We asked a group of young girls from our target audience what they thought and these were their views.

We asked them to be honest with us to ensure that our video could progress. Overall the comments were negative, they did not like the length of many shots as they were too long and not varied enough. Another issue was the lack of narrative scene as it was prominently performance based. They thought  with the use of a narrative the longer shots would be better but not for performance. They also said that the pace of the video was tiresome. It was one pace the entire way through compared to other music videos where the pace alters between chorus and verse. But, they did like the section before the chorus where the shots changed quickly. They thought it made the video more interesting. Something else that they mention was that they enjoyed it more when the actress was more involved with the music which leads to to think that we still need to have performance based sections in our revised video.

As our music video is also aimed at young men as well as women we asked two boys to help us with our feedback. Overall, their feedback was neutral. They commented more on the technical elements of thew video such as the editing on the beat and the previously mentioned quick changing shots. Some negative feedback was that their was nothing interesting about it and was rather boring for them to watch. They found it repetitive and long. 

Target Audience...

To help us decide on the music for our our project we decided to do some audience research into what they thought was important when it came to artists, genres and other things...

We handed the questionnaire to 27 people (14 female and 13 male) all between the age of 12 and 20.

These are our results...

From the results we have found firstly that our audience prefer solo artist more than bands. I think this is because they can become personally attached to an artist more than all band members. One participant also identified with this by by saying they could relate to a single artist better and see their personality.

Also, we found that the most popular music genre is pop which is closely followed by R'n'B. These are the more mainstream genres of music which would explain why they are the most upbeat. Metal and drum & bass were the two least popular with 4% each. This music is usually preferred by certain niche groups rather than a whole mainstream audience and this is why it is least popular.

We found that audiences prefer upbeat music to mellow slow music. This fits with the previous results of pop and R'n'B as these are classically known to be upbeat and loud genres.

When asking whether they preferred the music video to be more vocal or instrumental we found that those who had previously answered band answered instrumental here and those that chose solo chose vocal here. Having instrument solos is very typical of a band and vocal more a solo artist.