People involved

Bradley Russell
Bradley will be one of our cameramen. As well as this, he shall provide creative input to our video, as well as being part of the editing process. He will also feature as the bands drummer in the music video.

Connor Sleet
Connor will be one of the actors in our video, he will also be one of the cameramen in the group, and will help with the production and editing of the video as a complete product.

Ryan Almond
Ryan will be the main cameraman, as he is the member of the group with the most experience in Media. He will also be onset to come up with some more creative camera shots, and will play a vital role in the editing process.

Jacob Caria-Preen
Jacob is going to be the main actor in the video, providing it with it's storyline. As well as this, he shall be on set to provide input to the filming, editing and general production of the video.

Shooting schedule

Shooting Schedule

Session One: Filming of the short introduction to video (completely diegetic sound). This is likely to be filmed on a rooftop, also dependant of weather.

Session Two: Filming naturalistic scenes, most likely to be filmed in Beddington park, alternate location Richmond park/ Abbey Mills.

Session Three: Filming of urban scenes in London. Perhaps finding the opportunity to include intertextuality? 

Session Four: Naturalistic shots, most likely to be filmed in Richmond park. May include the re filming of some shots from previous sessions.

By Connor Sleet, Ryan Almond, Bradley Russell and Jacob Caria-Preen

Analysis of 3 similar products

Swedish house mafia-Save the world


This video tells us the story of 3 separate people, all who encounter some form of violent crime throughout the video. It is possible that the concept of 'mans best friend' comes into play in this video, as it is eventually a group of dogs who 'save the world'.


In the video, the soft singing and melody is played whenever the people are on screen, juxtaposed when the beat becomes louder and more majestic when the Dogs come on screen, suggesting how powerful the Dogs may be. It also suggests that Dogs are a lot more knowing than it seems.
A lot of the video is also filmed in slow motion, making the video even more dramatic. This also coincides with how the song is not always fast paced, therefore the video often matches up with the tempo of the song.


At the beginning of the video, we see how each person we are shown to be in trouble, and obviously in need of some help from the police. One young man is attacked in what appears to be a robbery in a small diner. Two women are assaulted in a violent mugging, and a middle ages man is dragged from his car, which is then stolen from him. As each of these events climax (Baseball bat being swung, women being grabbed and car window being smashed) the chorus then kicks in, almost like an alarm to anyone nearby.
This is when we get out first glimpse of a dog, brilliantly lit up (perhaps showing how each dog will become the saviour) on a street corner. The dog barks, and we then see a close up of several more dogs turning their heads and cocking their ears. 


Each dog then proceeds to help out each individual who has been attacked, by pursuing their attackers one by one, almost as if each dog is a vigilante righting wrongs in the night. After each villain has been chased down and 'dealt with' by the dogs, the video ends with a series of close ups of each dog flashing on the screen, lit up by different coloured lights.


This video seems to suggest that dogs are a mans best friend in any situation, even if the situation may not be ideal for the canine creatures. The video is very surreal, as the title 'save the world' and the early events of the video suggest that a superhero may intervene, not a small gang of dogs.




Strawberry swing- Coldplay

This music video is extremely creative through the use of pavement art and stop motion filming. The entire 4 minute video is filmed from one high camera angle, facing straight down upon a single piece of road. 
The only things that change throughout the video are Chris Martin's character's position and the chalk drawings on the pavement.


Through the use of stop motion filming and the chalk drawings, a highly surreal story is told to the audience. The main character, who seems to resemble a superhero sets out to save a damsel in distress, who appears to be kept captive by an evil (and giant) Squirrel. 


This video creates a popular tale of a woman who needs saving by a man, suggesting she is helpless without one. The story itself is very similar to many stories of women in distress. Their hero suffers a few setbacks along the way, however eventually the man prevails, proving his superiority over the enemies. This music video is no different, after setting off to save the woman, the squirrel cuts his cape, causing him to fall into a great ocean, before being swallowed by a giant cat. He then escapes and manages to fly, on a cloud, to the squirrels floating palace where it is sleeping. After waking it up and nearly falling again, he rescues the girl and kills the squirrel with an explosive acorn. They then fly to the moon and share a first kiss as the video ends.


This video is extremely surreal in content, and the strange outfit worn by Chris Martin, coupled with all of the strange colours used in the drawings amplify the fantasy tale. 


The most notable feature of the video is that although Chris martin may simply be moving very slowly along the road, the stop motion and chalk drawings make it look as though he is flying through the sky, or falling down into a city. The clever editing process has made it look highly professional, as is personally one of the most creative videos I have ever seen.










Touch the sky - Kanye west


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkwQbuAGLj4

'Touch the sky' is a 1970s style short film which presents Kanye West as 'Evil Kanyevil', a play on 'Evil Kenievil'. The video is a narrative which is supposedly about Kenievil's failed jump across 'Snake river Canyon'. 


The video appears to be filmed mainly from news cameras, showing off Kanye West as the stuntsman. There are plenty of fans to greet Kanye's character as he emerges from the car, implying how popular he is among the American people. There is added verisimilitude through the filming style and colours. As common in the 1970s, the video has a grainy look to it, as well as sporting a slight sepia tinge to the colours, which may have been a lot more common.


At some point in the video, Kanyevil is shouted at by whom appears to be an ex girlfriend, claiming he left her for a ' a white girl'. This suggests that Kanyevil is a bit of a womaniser, something that the media commonly portrays men as, while women are more often a lot more innocent than the men are. 
Kanyevils ridiculous aim to jump the grand canyon in this video suggests that he is a very cocky man, another trait commonly shown by the media. The man is very eager and very certain that he will pull off the near impossible jump, showing his cockyness and arrogance to the audience. Everyone is also very shocked and appear saddened when his mini rocket crashes and burns at the bottom of the canyon, once again showing how loved a man he really is.


Kanye includes verious references to his own work throughout the video. For one, the Black woman he shouts at him says 'that's right, girl, I told you, when he get on, he gonna leave yo' ass for a white girl', which is a reference to his own song, 'Gold digger'. Another reference comes during the simulated 'lost transmission' screen, where the audience can see Kanyes trademark teddy bear.


The video also has a $1 million budget, making it the 25th most expensive video of all time.

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is essentially, a way of paying homage to another song, artist or idea in an artists music video(s). Intertextuality is not always a common sight, as most music videos are an original idea that has not been done before, or perhaps the artist and recording company simply do not wish to pay homage to another idea.
One such example is that of Coldplay's "The Scientist" music video. This was an entirely new approach to the making of the video, as the lead singer Chris Martin learned the entire song backwards, as well as singing it twice as fast in order to make a story that would unfold chronologically in reverse look professional.



One example of intertextuality in music videos would be the video to "Goodbye Mr A", performed by The Hoosiers. In this video, the band pays homage to the graphic novel (comic book) industry, with all the bands members becoming superheroes with an evil plot. There are also many other references to popular culture scattered through the video, one of the characters is seen playing a game of FIFA ( the song was featured in the FIFA 08 soundtrack), and a slight pun on 'who you gonna call' is made when one of the band members answers a phone labelled "Hoosiers gonna call".

This video is just one of many that includes such references, and for the music video I am creating, I am eager to try and include some sort of reference to popular culture if possible, however including such references can sometimes be tricky, and it is very important that if we do try and create intertextuality in our own video, it matches the context of our song, video and film style.

List of equipment/props

We are going to have to use muliple pieces of hardware in our filming process in order to record a successful music video. This will include, of course, different cameras and lighting equipment (among others).
Hardware:

HD hand held video camera- provided by CBSC (school)
(Possible) Digital SLR with HD recording (in order to save time and create focus pulls)
Lyrics and Storyboarding- To know exactly what we’re going to shoot
Time Schedule- To stick on task and not run over schedule.
Light stand
Microphone Boom
Mp3 or music playing device (Phone)
Make-up set: Blusher to reduce shine on band.
Tripods

Software:

Final cut express
Adobe photoshop
Adobe illustrator
Livetype

Props:

Band Clothing (varying dependant on the day)
Instruments ; Guitar, Microphone, drums.  Microphone Stand.
Lighting ; Flashlight, flare
Mobile phones, and other personal effects the character may use in the video.

By Jacob Caria-Preen, Connor Sleet, Bradley Russell and Ryan Almond

Our letter to Warner

To Warner Music,


For our A2 Media project we are considering using Muse’s song ‘Feeling Good’ as you are the relevant copyright holder and hold the rights to Muse’s material we are requesting your permission to use the album version of the song in our final piece. The title ‘Feeling Good’ and the band’s name will also be used on our adverts and digipaks but they will not be used for promotional purposes or monetary gain and will simply be used as a piece of non-profit work.

The music video will not be released or be sold in any way, shape or form. The music video will only be seen by the OCR Exam Board and anyone in my media class but no one outside this circle. A copyright comment will be placed at the beginning of the music video to ensure no disputes with both Muse and Warner Music namechecked.

Yours Sincerely,

Bradley Russell, Ryan Almond, Jacob Caria-Preen and Connor Sleet

Locations

Urban Locations

For our urban locations, we have plenty of choices available to us. We plan on shooting plenty of urban locations as they will compliment the story line and add to the verisimilitude of our main character being a businessman.

Choice one: Croydon town center

Croydon is a very good choice for our group. This is mainly because it is a big town, and is therefore quite easy to find interesting shots. There are also a lot of side roads, which would help us try and paint the picture of a gritty urban scene, which we are very much aiming to do, as opposed to any naturalistic shots we plan on doing later in the video. 

Croydon is very near to our school, which is most likely where our group will meet before going anywhere to film, and is easily reachable from there by either the 157 bus route or  a tram line from Mitcham. There is also very limited cost of filming here as we all receive free travel. 

One drawback of filming in Croydon could be that it is often very busy. Because of this, we may experience a lot of people crossing in front of the camera while filming, which would mean taking more time to reshoot, wasting valuable filming time.

Choice two: London city

We have chosen London as a location as e feel we want to feature famous landmarks, which will hopefully cause a lot of people to identify with the settings, and (hopefully) our main character. The picture above is a shot that we definitely want to try and do, as the background is very interesting, and should look very good when our character is walking down the bridge.
One problem with traveling to London is that is may not be cost effective in terms of the amount of footage we could gain from a single trip. For instance, it can be expensive to travel to London on a regular basis, so it would be vital that we get most of our planned shots done to perfection in a single trip. It is also a very busy area to film in, and it is possible people may get in the way of our shots constantly.

One major positive is that we can get some impressive shots from anywhere in the city, as there are plenty of interesting shots scattered around, from Trafalgar square to the millennium bridge,  we can definitely find some great places to film.



Naturalistic Locations

We plan to film in several natural places, in order to gain some graphic matches to the songs lyrics that depict 'sea' and 'sky'.

Location 1: Beddington park.

This location has plenty of spots where filming would be perfect. The river wandle flows through the park, so therefore we may be able to use this as a graphic match for 'fish in the sea'. There is a lot of light, as most of the park is an open space, although there are also wooded areas that can be used for darker scenes.

Advantages include it's accessibility. Like Croydon, there is a bus that goes directly there within 5 minutes walking distance of our school, and within twenty minutes on foot. This means if we were to make a mistake whilst filming, we would easily be able to return here and re film that particular shot.

There is a large disadvantage in the fact that there are a lot of pedestrians that could potentially ruin some shots, once again like Croydon.


In conclusion, most of our potential locations are easily accessable, however some may incur  slight cost. There is also the risk of members of the public ruining a lot of our shots, so therefore we would have to be very careful not to get in anybody's way when out filming in busy areas.