What I am buying for the music video

After meeting with the set designer, we found that there were loads of things that we as a group needed to gather. The reason for this was because the set designer rents the majority of the stuff that she gets for these music videos, and since we are planning on destroying a lot of stuff in our set, she cannot rent something and then destroy it, and so we must get a lot of the stuff. 

After we found out what we will be providing, we split it up into what each person in the group would be getting. I was in charge of getting the pink fluffy pillows (two sets so that there can be a destroyed set and a normal set of pillows), cheap lipstick, and bed sheets. 

The first item I looked for was the pillows, and this took more time than I anticipated as I needed to find the pink cases that were the same size as the pillow insides that were sold separately. After looking for a while, this is what I found on Amazon. 

The next thing that I searched for was the pink bed sheet. Adrianna already has pink bed sheets at home for a single bed, but they cannot be destroyed and so the set that I bought will be the ruined set. This is what I found on Amazon. 

Finally, the cheap lipstick was easy to find. It didn't take me long at all to find inexpensive lipstick that would come in time for the shoot day. This lipstick, however, was not to be used on the cast but it was to be used as a marker on the vanity mirror in the destroyed set. 

Overall I would say that I am pleased with how this went, and although it took me a while to find stuff that would come in time, we now don't have to worry about not having everything for the set. 

Meeting the set designer

We met with a set designer for many reasons. Firstly, to show her what we wanted the set to look like so that she could build it in the same way that we thought it would look, but we also met to discuss what stuff would be collected by her (the set designer), and by us as a group. Here is the set designs we showed her. 

We figured out that most of the stuff that we planned on destroying needed to be bought by us, as the set designer could not rent something if we were going to destroy it in the music video. We also found out that a lot of the big objects that we wanted in our set would not be necessary and could actually cause problems, for example, we found that we would not need a big wardrobe as it would just take up way too much space for the one shot that we would use, and we can have the clothing kept off set when we film in the perfect 1st set, but when the bedroom is messy and destroyed we can throw the close on the floor and on the bed without needing a wardrobe at all. We spent a long time discussing what we as a group would get, and what the set designer would rent as well, and this is the list that we made to show who was getting what. 

We also developed a visual prop list to help the set designer and ourselves to see what we were looking for using pictures:

Now, we have to decide who is getting what from our group for the stuff that we have to get, and then we have to find it online and make sure it comes in time for our music video. 

Lighting presentation/meeting feedback

We have now had a meeting with a lighting specialist, and we showed him our lighting presentation consisting of what lighting we would like in our music video. The reason we met with the professional is because he will be there on the day helping with the lights, positioning the lights and doing other stuff to make sure the lighting is perfect. Also, he can let us know if our lighting would look good for the kind of video that we are going for. 

Here is the lighting presentation that we made. 

Now that we have shown this presentation to the professional, and we have discussed it, we have all the information that we need on the lighting, and we don't have to worry about the lighting not looking its best. 

Advanced editing workshop

We all attended an editing workshop by Matt at school so that we can all learn how to edit, some secret tips and some techniques that will come in hand when we start the process of editing our music videos. The first thing that we got told was the order in which we edit the music videos for bands (which obviously applies to us) - we do the performance cut first, the narrative cut second (dropping in and out), then we do the effects, and then the colouring. One helpful tip that we then got told was that the rubbish bin has the shots inside labelled based on quality of footage as well as the shot number, so you know what the shot is likely to look like. 

We then got told the different techniques for syncing. Firstly, you zoom in to the audio of the first track that you're trying to find, and you find a key point of audio that is easy to see, and find what time that it can be heard. Then, with the second clip you are trying to sync up, zoom in and find the same audio on the second clip, and drag it down into position, with the audio lined up exactly, and the two clips will be synced. Right click to rename the clip. This is a technique called sound sync. 

We then got told the 3 rules of editing that Matt goes by:

1. Let the music tell you, and illustrate for you what you should see alongside the music. For example, the first words that are sung in a music video should always be a close up of the singer, followed by a wide shot of the band (if there is a band) to let the audience know where everyone is standing. 

2. Group your shots together. This should help stop your shots looking so random and can help avoid confusion. Also, another side tip that Matt gave us is that each shot will tell us what should come next (e.g. if we see the guitarist looking to his left in a shot, we follow his sight and the next shot is a close up of his hand on the fretboard, which he was looking at). 

3. Follow the movement. By following the movement of everyone in the music video, it can help the final edit look less stiff, helps the music video flow better and can even add movement through the shots, making the performance seem more lively just from editing. 

Shooting schedule

We have made a shooting schedule for our music video. As I said on the reflection of our test shoot, one of the things that went really well in that was our organisation, in which we had no issues, and so we would like the organisation to remain as good or even better for the actual thing. This shooting schedule will certainly help us achieve this, as it tells us what we are doing and when, and if we are running behind or ahead of schedule, we can adapt the shooting schedule on site to make it all work. 

Reflection of test shoot

I am now going to review how I think each aspect of the test shoot that we organised went, and what we could do differently when it comes to the real thing. I am doing this so that if I can see what went well (so we can try and do the same for the real shoot), but more importantly what we can improve on. I think the one of the strongest part of the test shoot was the organisation. We were able to contact everyone in the band well before the test shoot to let them know that they were needed, with their costumes, and everyone turned up on time, wearing the right clothing, with everything they had needed learnt already learnt. This is something that we can easily do again using our Whatsapp group chat and our Snapchat group chat to make sure everything is running smoothly on the day in terms of organisation. 

Another part that went well was the amount of shots that we were able to film in a short period of time. We only had 30 minutes of time to do our test shoot and to film all the footage on that day, and we were able to go through the song several times, and do many different shots, which made it very good for editing as we weren't having to scrape the bottom of the barrel for footage, and we had loads to choose from. This may be harder to try and redo on the day, as we have to change sets, and we also have to consider that we have more equipment and other things to take into account, for example costume changes. Having said this, we do have the entire day to film, and so this may balance out, and I think we will be able to gather loads of footage for our music video. 

However, there were certainly things that we could improve upon when shooting the real thing. For example, we were quite hap-hazard in the way that we chose what to film. We did some thinking before on different positions we would like the band to be in that we could film, but it was one of the things that I personally think that we could have been more organised in. However, one of the reasons for this was because we had only really thought about different positions the band could be in with the proper set, and we obviously couldn't do a lot of those positions in the small rehearsal space we used to film the test shoot. Also, we have developed a shot list to help organise what shots we need, and we can use this on the day, tick off the shots that we have done, and see what we have left to shoot. 

Overall, I think the test shoot went well but the most important thing about the test shoot was to see where we could improve so that we could make it better when it comes to the real thing, and so it will only be useful if we learn from it which is what we are going to try and do. 

Call sheet

This is our call list. We made a call list so that we can contact every member of the band and the production easily  on the day of shooting, and also leading up to the shoot day with rehearsals and other stuff like that. 

Our finished edited test shoot

This is our finished and edited test shot. Again, the reason why we decided to hold a test shoot was so that we could see how the band operated together, so that we could see if there were any big issues that we had to sort out before the big shoot day, and also just to make sure that the band had some time performing together before the shoot day so that they could build up a little bit of chemistry together pre-hand. It also gave us a chance to test out our organisational skills, to make sure that we didn't forget anything, to make sure everyone turned up, and to make sure that we had everything. 

Here is the fully edited version of the test shoot. 

Development of our idea

We decided to develop our idea as a group, so that we had a more secure plan, and a more in depth idea of what our band would be doing in the music video, and other things as well. We had two specific targets that we thought of to work on and to develop. 

Adrianna and Tegan worked together to think of 20 things that the band could be doing when they aren't lip syncing to the song. Here is what they came up with. 

Georgie worked on 10 configurations that the band could be in before the set was destroyed, and here is what she came up with. 

Finally, I looked at configurations regarding the bands performance after the set was destroyed. I found this a struggle at first to think of loads of different things, but in the end I am very glad that we have these layouts to fall back on so that we don't run out of configurations to film on the shoot day. These are the ideas that I came up with. 

Our back up cast list

We had to make a back up cast list incase anyone couldn't make the final shoot due to covid, or incase a member of the band dropped out. This took us slightly longer than before, because our first back up cast list had some of the other band members being a back up for another role, and so this is a completely new set of people for our back ups. This is our back up cast list. 

Test shoot edited video version 1 - progression

This is the first version of our edited video for our test shoot. Since Adrianna couldn't make it to the test shoot, she opted to edit the footage into a video. The reason for this is so we get all the best footage we have, and we can select what parts of the test shoot we liked and which parts we thought were good, but wouldn't work as well when it came to the real thing. This is just a first draft of the video, but I think it has turned out well so far which is encouraging. 

Test shoot/costume rehearsal

Using our Whatsapp group chat, we organised a full dress rehearsal in one of the band rooms at our school with the whole band. I filmed the entire rehearsal, Adrianna organised it, Georgie played the music in the background for the band, and Tegan, Georgie and I put the band in different positions to see what they would look like, and also to help them develop a chemistry as band fellow members on camera. I brought in my guitar for Connie to play, but I don't think this is the guitar we will be using for the actual shoot as it doesn't really go with the colour scheme. Here is some of the footage we gathered from the test shoot. 

Working out our costume

We have discussed what the band members should wear as a group. Our first idea was to have them all in barbie type clothing to fit the barbie set at the start of the music video, and then when the song kicks into the rocky section, we would have them in the traditional pop-rock, semi-rebellious type clothing such as an artist like Avril Lavigne would wear:

However, after some further discussion, we have settled on developing on this idea more. We would have their rock clothing, but they would have 2 sets of the barbie clothing, and one of these sets will be wrecked and destroyed, and one of the sets will be used at the start when all the band members look innocent. This is so that when they are going to be destroying the set, we have found that it is going to be difficult to portray the destroyed set without actually damaging parts of the set, and so we set out to discuss ways to get around this, and by having the band members in destroyed clothes, it will make it look like they have actually trashed the set more than if they were in normal, untouched clothing. Adrianna has done some drawings of some of the costume designs that we are looking for. 

We have communicated with the band members to see if they have any of the appropriate clothing, and all of them had suitable clothing for the rebellious rock look. We are going to use a great deal of their own clothing for this look as when we did a test shoot with them all in the rock clothing, they all looked brilliant. 

As for the barbie set, we have all looked on amazon as a group. For reference, this is the kind of costume we are looking for. I found this one on amazon, and although it is a costume for a younger person, it is very similar to the style we are looking for. 

How we are communicating as a group

Since we are working as a group on this music video, communication between the members of the group is essential. We are using a snapchat group chat for just the members of the group to communicate amongst ourselves. We are using this group chat for quick and easy communication, and to discuss things that just require the four of us (Adrianna, Tegan, Georgie and I). On top of this we also have a Whatsapp group chat for everyone involved in the music video, including the cast members. We use this to schedule rehearsals, to discuss costumes and see if any of the band members have instruments or clothing that we can use in the video. Both of these group chats are fundamental in the communication of all people involved in the video.

The complete storyboard

 This is our entire storyboard. Again, we split the work on the storyboard equally, with Adrianna and I doing most of the drawings, and Tegan and Georgie doing the writing, and a couple of the drawings.