Final Video Feedback

Positive

• Lighting was good and effective.
• Microphone shot at the end was good.
• Good variety in shots.
• It looked professional.
  
• Slow-motion running at the end was effective.
  
• Good looking transitions.
  
• Most people thought the overlay was good.
• Silhouette shots matched our original planning (see animatic).
  

Negative

• Some people did not like the overlays.

Final Video

media music video from Antoine Dutilh on Vimeo.

Filming 2nd time around

By doing a second shoot we hope to correct any of the problems that were created when trying to edit the video.
Tonight's Filming

• Many of the shots taken tonight will be filmed on a tripod to ensure clear and steady shots.
• The same footage will be captured numerous times from multiple angles to allow for a wide selection of shoots to choose from when editing.
• The footage will be shot at various times during the day aiding the narrative within the video. The narrative will be based around a guy running towards the band and to display time change within the video we intend to shoot as it gets darker (until nighttime).
  

Rough Cut

Main Narrative Idea/Structure

Part 1: Original Band Performance shots
Man is woken up by band and is confused, why is he in a dim car park with a playing band?

Part2 : Flash Back shots of Man seeing band through out his day like in street and stuff, this is mixed in with more band performance shots + man watching band.

Part 3: Man freaks out starts running from band, through car park, runs past creepy band members watching him. He finally escapes leaves through door, as he goes through he realizes hes back in the car park room with the playing band................end

Blog Feedback

As much as we would like to think that our blog is perfect, we know that it has some things missing and a couple of unfinished pieces but the class giving us feedback were too kind to let us know so all the feedback we have for now is positive...:

• Shot lists were detailed and stepped everything through.
• Lots of video analysis.
  
• Location posts were good.
• Lighting & tone post were different and looked 'wow'.
  
• Proper band looks very good.
• Lots of blog con tent - good detail for lighting and shot list.
• Good variety of pictures used for location and also camera angles, looks good.

Equipment List

Ipod Speakers:





Step ladder.




River







Guitar








Drm Kit

Test Footage 1

Test Footage Summary

This test footage is just a short example of the performance part to our video, we wanted to gather a rough impression of how the silhouettes would work and see how a couple of camera angles may look. We thought the overhead shot looked good and will look even better once we have proper lighting, rather than the light from a phone, and we can spend more time perfecting the angle and panning.

2nd part/ Narrative Shot List

Starts when car pulls forwards to singer, in the band performance.
Shot 1. Car pulls up towards performing band
Shot 2. Shot of performing band
Shot 3 . Shot of car stopping in front of still performing band
Shot 4. shot of car turning on lights, which illuminates band
Shot 5. Front on shot of illuminated band
Shot 6. Close of car door opening, then foot comes out and hits the ground
Shot 7. Band performing shot
Shot 8. Out of focus image of silhouette rising from car
Shot 9. More band performances shots
Shot 10. Low shot of silhouette viewing banding from a distance
Shot 11. Pan shot, almost POV shot of band from silhouette point of view
Shot 12. Overhead view of band
Shot 13. Shot of silhouette looking at the band (silhouette not in focus, but band is )
Shot 14. More band performance

It's really nothing more than an idea but i might as well post it, i was perhaps thinking that the narrative could be a bit of an insight in to the man who is silhouetted and is a Priest or just like a strict church follower (i just thought of this because of the 'religion' line) who becomes disillusioned and he comes out and just turns to drinking, starting fights randomly with people in the street and then starts driving and ends up in the car park, which reverts back to him being there watching the band etc. I don't know really... it was just an idea.

Performance Shot List

Pre-music start
1. Close-up shot of microphone blurred and coming in to focus when the singer steps up to the mic.
2. Side shot of the bass drum being practiced by drummer.
3. Front, close-up shot of guitar strings.
4. Close shot of bass head.
5. Picture of plugging in to amp
6. Singer taking mic out.
7. Turning volume up on the amp.
Music starts
8. Overhead mid-shot of drummer.
9. Full band mid-length shot panning from right to left.
10. Close-up on singer.
11.

lighting and tone

example of what the lighting is going to be like for the band playing part of the video. also a possible location. (Newmarket car park)

Animatic Feedback

• Introduction, with the plugging instruments in, fits in with music genre.
• Drawing the arrows on was good because it gave a clear sense of direction and the camera movement during the shots.
• Could've done with adding in a few more of the narrative shots to make it clear on what's going to happen in the narrative part of the video and we perhaps left it a bit short.
• If we could do the animatic again, we would put some more narrative shots in, to give a clearer direction of where we want the video to go.
• We could have made it more clear that the figures where silhouettes.

Animatic

Cage The Elephant

Cage The Elephant are a indie/rock band from America who're just breaking through in the UK at the moment and bagged a main support slot with The Pigeon detectives early on in 2008. They are a 5-piece band, with an increasingly popular set up of a singer, 2 guitarists, a bassist and a drummer.

We've tried contacting them a few times, via Myspace, but with little success. After asking for lyrics, i got a response from a member saying "will get Matt (the singer) to send it over"...which hasn't happened as of yet, despite a few reminders.

Shot list

band shots:
for the intro, we'll start with an extreme close up focusing on the individual band members (preparing/setting up instruments etc) then it will go into a zooming out panned like shot to introduce the band. they will then start playing. a low shot of the band can be used to show dominance and more when the shot is zooming out, we will cut parts out to create a sharp cropped out effect continuously zooming out.
the shot will be in a fairly dark location lit up by car lights to accentuate the band members.

Narrative shots:
based on a movie called 'Donni Darko' it will have the same sort of introduction. we are still not sure what will be our opening for the video but either one will be used. we'll have someone wake up in the middle of know-where and just walking away and he will be filmed going through the town and various incidents will occure.

- window shots from cars, showing someone singing on the street.
- transparency effects for various shots.
- fast abstract shots from various view points e.g. of instruments.
- steady panning shots from car showing actions of the people walking in the street.
- action shots; someone falling into a river (reverse shots can be used)

Location Possibilities

Cambridge Science parks
Riverside (Somewhere in Cambirdge e.g. Mill Pond, Newnham, Grantchester).
Performances done in an area in evening with lots of light (possibly Grantchester).
Various locations out and and about in Cambridge on the roads from car.

Many of the location possibilities are specifically chosen for dramatic effect. Overgrown areas tend to have a perhaps more intense atmosphere. In conjunction, these areas will not be as populated and therefore we will be able to concentrate fully on the band when filming rather than trying to constantly avoid the public. When watching the video it will also somewhat force an audience to pay attention to the desired bits of the video, rather than having to many things going on, on screen, at any one time.
In contrast the narrative part of the video may be filmed in town and on roads (in the company of the public) completely distinguishing it from the band's performance. This will diminish any confusion between the two parallel bits of action/ storylines that are taking place in the music video.

Related Ideas

Radiohead - Karma Police



This video is similar to the idea we had about filming some of the footage through a car window. We liked this video because it sets up a more interesting frame for the shot and with the headlights, it provides good lighting.

Related Ideas

Vampire Weekend - A-Punk



We like the technique they used for filming this video, in which they filmed the footage at a reduced speed and then put it back up to the normal pace in editing to create a jumpier, snappier effect for the video.

Further Ideas

I was trying to think of another shot idea that we could make the performance part of the video as interesting as the window-shots idea that Tally had, and we could combine together. I think we could have a couple of straight on shots (maybe for the opening lines) with quite dramatic lighting and film it with the song playing at a lot slower speed with whoever performs singing to the slow version and then we speed it back up in editing to make it look snappier and more interesting. There is a similar kind of a example of this idea, but with individual frames, in the Sledgehammer video by Peter Gabriel:

Pitch

We’re doing the song Lotus by an indie band called Cage The Elephant. We chose the song because we felt it would be easy to work to and is quite upbeat so we can work with the fast tempo to create a flowing, capturing video. We all agreed on having quick cut editing to match the rhythm of song and then we will slow down for the chorus.

We decided to stick to indie video conventions by going for a performance driven video, which has been increasingly popular amongst bigger indie artists such as Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand. We will also include a rough narrative to it to make it standout more as a video and we felt it’d be too boring to work with having just performance, especially due to the fact that the last minute of the song has no words in it. Outdoors settings for both performance and narration parts because it just allows more open shots and gives a lot more natural light to the shot.

The initial ideas we’ve had for the video is:
• For performance part of the video, a abstract view of different situations of the band playing down a street or in a field and we could film from less traditional perspectives e.g. through a car window.
• "...it's gonna stop" line shown from sped up footage from passenger seat of car out the front window and coming to a red light, edited to finish dead on the "stop" beat.
• We had an idea, inspired by the film ‘Donnie Darko’ where we could have part of the narrative involving the main person waking up in different random places.
• We’re also exploring the idea of having different narrative incidents, possibly representing the lyrics, but editing them to be in reverse or different filters.
• One of our main shots that we want to include is somebody falling in to water but we edit it so it plays backwards and it looks like somebody is rising out of the water.

We may have found a possible band to star in our video, to provide a more professional feel to our music video and it will also help having actors who’re experienced singers so hopefully the lip syncing will be more accurate.

As far as the shot colour is concerned, we’re thinking of putting it in a lot darker gradient and possible coloured filter changes because it would add a lot more professional feel and increase the intensity of the video.

Luckily, Antoine in our group has a HD video camera so we have the option of using this to increase quality of the video.