Practice filming/editing

We had another opportunity in a lesson to have permission to film, now that we have been given the cameras and equipment. However, our camera only had little charge which meant that we had to stay inside as we had to film with the camera plugged in. This didn't limit us as to what we could film within the lesson time, however it also gave myself and my group a strong reminder as to remember to fully charge our camera when out on location.

We decided to film some practice "studio like" shots as this is right at the start as our music video and it made sense to start there. We went into the gym of our school as it has a white bricked walls and putting Elle against these, it was a replica as to what we want when it comes to actually filming.



We took our research from 'The rule of thirds' into consideration and applied our newly formed knowledge when we filmed these scenes. We played our song in the background when filming and when editing we took parts from our footage so we lip synched random parts which is what we will do in our real music video to break up the narrative.

Framing and Composition

In order to gain a successful shot when filming, it is vital that as a group we understand about the "rule of thirds". The rule of thirds is a compositional rule of thumb in visual arts such as painting, photographyand design.The rule states that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections. Proponents of the technique claim that aligning a subject with these points creates more tension, energy and interest in the composition than simply centering the subject would.

Headroom

Headroom refers specifically to the distance between the top of the subject's head and the top of the frame, but the term is sometimes used instead of lead room, nose room or 'looking room' to include the sense of space on both sides of the image. The amount of headroom that is considered aesthetically pleasing is a dynamic quantity; it changes relative to how much of the frame is filled by the subject. Moving images such as film and video cameras have the same headroom issues as still photography, but with the added factors of the movement of the subject, the movement of the camera, and the possibility of zooming in or out. Headroom changes as the camera zooms in or out, and the camera must simultaneously tilt up or down to keep the center of interest approximately one-third of the way down from the top of the frame. The closer the subject, the less headroom needed. In extreme close-ups, the top of the head is out of the frame,but the concept of headroom still applies via the rule of thirds.

Practice Filming

Last week in our media lesson, we got given all our equipment so we could go and film the material needed for our music video. Myself and my group went out and filmed a few shots of Elle in different locations and came back to the media room and uploaded it. For 3 hours worth of work, I am impressed with what we managed to produce, here it is:

Lip Syncing

One day in our free periods, me and Elle decided to get to grips with the whole "lip syncing" (even though it's Elle who is playing Pixie Lott in our video, I thought I'd have a go as well). We tried lots of different songs, from all different genres and used different effects on the web cam to fit the mood of the song. the slower songs we put in black and white as this really added to the effect of the slower songs being more serious. The more upbeat song like "Check it out" we put in the "pop art" effect which includes colours such as red, yellow, green and orange.

We stayed after school and edited all the songs together to make a "montage" of different clips and here is what we finished off with, hope you like it!

Intertexuality

Intertexuality is the shaping texts meanings' by other texts. so, its when a music artist, takes something from another similar music video, film, TV programme or magazine advert and make it their own and put it into their video. J-Lo and Geri haliwell did this in their music videos and got the intertextuality from the common dance film "Flash dance".



For our music video, we have taken inspiration from Kate Nash who is another female artist that fits in with our genre and her video "foundations". The way the socks move together, the toothbrushes twist around each other etc is a great way of putting intertexuality into your film. We thought, to fit with the title of our song "like a broken arrow", that we could draw a frame by frame animation (similar to our moving story board) and speed up the clips when we edit it. This way the arrow will shoot in to some sort of drawing of a heart or something and then break, so it will create the image of a "broken arrow".



As this is an acoustic version of Pixie Lott singing, we would like to incorporate the use of a music studio into our music video to add an element of performance to go alongside the narrative. We will make a studio from using the white backdrop and lighting in our school's photography room.

Stop Motion Story Board

In order to have a well planned out storyboard to follow when it comes to filming, we decided to do an "animated" version, something that we picked up on from the Richmix trip a few weeks ago. We drew out a small picture for each lyric of the song and wrote how many seconds each frame of the song lasts. It took a while to put together and here is the final product. I really hope this comes to our help when we finally get filming!