Lighting workshop

Today we had a lighting workshop in preparation for our music videos. We learnt about how to use the lights safely and the different lighting effects / techniques. 

We will be using a Red Head light as our key light during the shoot day. In order to have the least shadowing you must place the key light near to the camera, however this isn't essential as for some lighting techniques / effects other lights will be used to counter the shadows. 

We were immediately taught about the dangers of the light blowing during the shoot day. The power of these film lights creates so much heat that the bulbs blow a lot more frequently than usual house lights. Because of this, all of the lights have a metal scrim to stop glass flying out and potentially hurting someone. 

Red Head lights are very intense and so they create very sharp shadows. In order to soften the shadows we will be using 'frost' and 'spun'. This plastic paper diffuses the light and the light breaks off into different directions, softening the beam. 

3 POINT LIGHTING

Three point lighting is the most standard lighting technique used. It is used for filming interviews and news reports. It is made from three lights, the Key light (Red Head), a Fill light and a back light. The Fill light is a second Red Head light used to fill in the shadows created by the key light. The back light is a Blonde light used to give an edge around our subject that separates them from the background. It is raised higher than the other lights and angled downwards, towards our subject. 

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Polystyrene is commonly used to create a more natural fill / bounce light. Having polystyrene instead of having a fill light creates a softer, more natural effect that still fills in the shadows. 

Theatre flats wrapped in gel plastic can also be used a light diffusers to make the intense light smoother. It  also spreads the light better and so the quality of the light equal from head to toe.

Matte Box's are also commonly used to get rid of 'dirty light' showing in the shot. Makes the shot look smoother as it gets rid of the glistening light in the corners of the shot.

FLUORESCENT TUBE LIGHTS 

These lights are thin tubular lights. It is impossible to dim these lights as they need all of the power to work. If you reduce the power they will switch off. We are given many gel tubes to put around these lights that create different colours. 

The same principles apply with these lights, you need a key light and a back light. 

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Colours can also be made by bouncing light off of objects. For example, we bounced the Red Head light off of a bright green wall and it created a soft green light. 

Re-thinking of our theme and plot for our music video.

In today's lesson we had a big discussion about what our overall theme is and where our ideas are leading us. We came to the conclusion that all of our set ideas are similar in theme and colour but have no links to our artist or tell anything about who the artist is. 

As a group we have decided to re-think our theme and properly create our artists persona and then portray it through our music video. 

We are using this layout as our last resort, however we had a discussion and we don't want to take the easy route. 

This means that we will have to re-think the whole theme of our video.

Our finished treatment!

Click here to to see our treatment!

Our treatment shows set, costume, lighting and makeup ideas that we think suits our artist. 

Our set ideas also link to our overall theme and plot for the video. 

Camera workshop

Today we had a camera workshop in preparation for filming our music videos. We learnt about the different lenses that are available for us to use. There are pro's and con's to each lens and so my group and I are going to have to have a discussion and make our plans for the shoot day. 

 

Last year,  for our opening title sequence projects we used a normal zoom lens. This year we are going to use prime lenses. These lenses have a fixed zoom setting but the quality of the video is a lot better. 

Finding the correct focus for these lenses is slightly different to the zoom lenses we are used to. For the prime lenses someone must measure the distance from the lens to the person or object that you want to be in focus. You then have to adjust the focus dial that is measured in distance to match the distance of the person / object that you want to be in focus. 

Next we learnt about some more zoom lenses. These two lenses made by DZOFilm zoom from 20 - 125 which is a much bigger range than the zoom lenses we used last year. The camera quality is also arguably as good as the prime lenses. 

We then learnt about the shutter angle of the camera. We started off by looking at 180 degrees which provides the most natural look. When the shutter angle is turned down to around 72 degrees it creates more motion blur. This lower shutter angle is often used for action movies to provide a more chaotic and fast paced look.

Artist social media analysis

Click here to see my Prezi walkthrough!

ANALYSE SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS

Preparing a treatment

What is a treatment and what are the fundamentals of making one?

When a label is planning on creating a music video for an artist they will usually send out a 'brief' to around 8-10 directors. The freelance directors will then create a 'treatment' in response to the brief. The treatment is  effectively the director's audition / pitch to get the job of being the director for the music video. Treatments are sent over to the record label as documents in a powerpoint presentation style. This means that the treatments have to clearly show the type of video the director wants to make. 

The brief that the label sends to the directors includes details of the artist and other details such as the budget for the video. 

The next step is to begin planning the different styles of set and the overall mise en scene of the music video in order to create our treatment.

Genre conventions

In todays lesson we put together screen shots of similar artist music videos. We discovered two R&B music videos each and printed pictures off and began discussing. Here are all the videos my group screen shotted. 

          (1)

The first aspect we noticed was the costume and how it matches with the set. The bold patterns and colours on her jacket immediately present her as having a confident and uplifting personality. The colours in the background and the location furthermore reflects these traits. The whole video is filmed in an urban setting as it shows the viewers she enjoy's going out and therefore can be seen as fun and outgoing. Overall the video directly complements the upbeat music through the mise en scene.

                                                                                                                                                          (2)

                                                                                                                                                         

The first aspect we noticed is the continuous use of red throughout the whole video. We can clearly see the red theme in the costumes, lighting, backdrop and props. This immediately sets a more relaxed tone to the video. In multiple sections the singer is either sat on the floor or on a sofa. This creates a relaxed tone though how the singer is positioned. 

                 (3)

This music video is very simplistic compared to the other videos I have spoken about. This is because the whole video is shot in one location. Once again, the red colouring that is present throughout the entire video creates a relaxed tone. This reflects the slower paced R&B style music showcased in this video.

                                                                                                                                                        (4)

This music video is a lot more natural and has a vintage look to it. The nature aspect of this video creates a soft and calm atmosphere. This is because we mainly associate nature with peace. This soft and calm tone reflects the song. 

All of these music videos share the fact that the style, pace and tone of the song is reflected within the video through the mise en scene. As a group we decided that the first and third videos are the most similar to what we have envisioned ours to be like. This is because we felt that the first video communicates the persona and characteristics of the singer the best. This is something we would like to establish in our video. The third video is very similar to what we envisioned because off the bold colour and a silhouette. 

Securing our lead singer

Today we picked our lead singer for our music video.

We chose Kiera as we believe she has the confidence and the look to fill the space and carry the music video. Kiera also has lots of experience with performing in music videos which helps our group a lot as she is used to the process. 

After we had finalised who our lead singer would be we began researching and planning into possible sets for our video. We decided to have multiple sets with different colours and small changes in the props and backdrop. 

Here are some YouTube, Vevo and Film clips that we found that intrigued us.

This is a LED cotton design we found on YouTube that someone made for their bedroom. We were intrigued by this as it is cheap and easy as it's made from LED lights and cotton wool. It also creates a very vibrant LED thunderstorm look. 

These screen shots are from the music video of Drake's song 'Hotline Bling'. We were intrigued by how such a simplistic look can give off so much energy. I think this colourful box look also shows off our character's personality extremely well 

This picture is from the movie 'Step up 3 - Revolution'. The dangling jellyfish lights intrigued us as we thought that our singer could use / move around them in certain ways. 

All of these are just initial thoughts and tomorrow we are going to start properly planning and drawing out our sets. 

Here are some drawings that Matilda did of the ideas we had today.

Potential lead singers

Today we decided to go through some details such as our different sets and finding potential lead singers.

We began to research similar artist music videos to see if we could get any inspiration for our sets. 

'Just a boy' by Alaina Castillo stuck out to us and gave us some inspiration as we thought of having six different sets that consist of different bright colours and small adjustments of props and background patterns.

  

Whilst Matilda carried on looking for similar artist music videos that we could potentially get inspiration from, Carl and I went around the school campus searching for potential lead singers. We found four female theatre students who are also singers. However, we are still going to keep an open mind for other lead singers.

Here is a comparison of the real artist and one of our potential candidates, 'Daisy'.

     The real artist (RUBII)                                             One of our potential candidates 

Once we had found some potential lead singers for our music video we decided to test how they would look lip-syncing to the song. We gave them the first four lines of our song and told them "to vibe to the song". 

Our potential lead singers

Choosing our artist

As a group we have decided to pick RUBII as our artist, using the song 'Manifest'.

We researched into similar artist music videos to get some inspiration and we're going to get together next week and discuss the music videos we found and anything that we liked about them.

Researching possible artists

Researching the amount of views or listens each artist has.

RUBII has 958 monthly listens on Spotify and just below 40,000 listens on her most popular song. These numbers are perfect for this product as she is not signed to a record label and is not hugely well known.

'Manifest', the song we had on our shortlist has just over 17,000 listens which is over the recommended number but as her monthly listens are so low it means we could still create a music video for it.

Loveless Death Scene has just over 600 monthly listens on Spotify and just over 16,000 listens on their most popular song. This is perfect as they're also not signed to a record label and not hugely known.

'Midnight Blue', the song we had on our shortlist is also their most popular song but doesn't have too many listens and so using it for our music video would be perfect.

Creating a shortlist for possible artists

Firstly, we were allocated our groups for the music video project for our year 2 coursework. I was placed into a group with Matilda and Carl. I'm very pleased as I was in a group with Matilda for our Year 1 coursework project and I was extremely pleased with the outcome and how well we worked together. 

In today's lesson we also created a shortlist of artists and discussed the benefits of each artist. We created the shortlist by listening to each others songs that we had discovered over the summer and picked our favourites. Above is the shortlist my group and I created today.

Music video artist shortlist

Click here to see artist two!

 

Loveless Death Scene

Q. Group or Solo?    A. Group / Band

Q. Different roles?   A. Pianist / Singer / Guitarist 

Q. Nationality?        A. American 

Q. Age?                   A. Mid 20's

WHAT I DID IN LESSON ONE

Click here to see artist three!