Our Shoot Day for our new idea

After deciding our location and finalizing our idea we decided to film it on a Friday after school in which we had time all of mid-day to late afternoon to set up and film. We didn't need to book or schedule far in advance as the school theatre would not be operational when all the students went home. Therefore all that was available were teachers, the film crew/actors and resources. We filmed our animatic a few days before in which we were able to get a certain idea of the shots we want to create but not necessarily include all of them. Also, as all the teachers were at school, we were able to use Mr Simon Wood as our presenter. We cleared all the chairs from the room and managed to reassemble the stage so it was in a formation that elevated the drum kit and had both guitarists on the sides with the singer at the front. Here is the formation we made the day before...

First off we got our teacher and filmed him by the curtain presenting our live performance for the Ed Wood show. As we were creating a parody he presented in several different accents such as Russian, Australian, English and American. We thought the filming went well and that our teacher had a great script in which he improvised some of it as he has had previous acting experience before. After this we set up the stage which took about twenty minutes as it required heavy lifting. The props were brought in as personal possessions however the drum kit, microphone and amplifiers were all taken from the music rooms but it was helpful that the equipment from the music department was directly opposite the theatre. Time wise we aimed to do it for 5 hours even though we had more to spare as we weren't in a completely time strict place. After collecting the equipment we set it up on stage and managed to get the song played through the theatre speakers via auxiliary. We started filming and managed to improvise all the moves with the playing of the instruments and luckily our lead singer is an experienced live performer and was able to perform some authentic rhythmic moves that worked well with the idea. As a group we worked well and managed to capture all our camera shots in which we filmed a few more shots. However in several shots the lead singer didn't know the lyrics to the specific part, therefore we knew that editing would not tolerate these mistakes. We also captured several shots of the musicians but added a few wideshot's of them singing the chorus to act as if they are part of the singing. We also had one person controlling the lights from the top kiosk for the flood and stage lights. He was very inexperienced with them so it took a while to get the right light to use at the beginning of the performance. Furthermore he wasn't able to change the brightness so we didn't know whether it was too much. We managed to complete several wide shots and extreme close-ups as we planned as we didn't want to film the video from one take, thus mixing in present day technology and mixing it with the past. Some areas we could of improved were the playing of the instruments which weren't always played to time and didn't look like the right chords necessary for the song. Our main concern was the water and the symbol shot because we weren't sure we would be able to capture it perfectly without damaging the lens, but we managed to zoom in on the instrument and successfully did it with no errors. This was due to myself not hitting the symbol as hard as we wanted to. Overall I think the shoot day went exceptionally well, we filmed every shot that we wanted to include and managed to easily access resources. However it may have been better to have rehearsed or learnt the lyrics especially as it is a hard song to sing and as well maybe learn the actual chords for the song making it more realistic. It was much more challenging than if we did a narrative based/slower paced song and we were willing to put ourselves to that test and see if we could film something unlike any other media music video. Here are some images and a video from the day.....

A live performance leading to a wider audience

A live performance is traditionally of music before an audience, in which a band gets to sell themselves to the public without the use of immediate technologies and editing software's. It has become one of the main ways that organic and synthetic artists make money. We decided that we wanted our idea to revolve around a live performance as we are selling ourselves as an organic artist which doesn't have a large fan base, but we want to extend our audience to those of the past and the present. We will immediately include elements that will make our video seem part of the 1950's but we will use elements of modern technologies to make it modern and trendy.

As the music industry is very demanding we don't want to make viewers feel as if they are seduced by our video, like a synthetic artist does with their make-up and prodigious effects. We want to familiarize them with every single aspect of our video whether it attracts older  or younger people. Also a live performance is the key way to make money in the modern music age, as streaming has lorded over the use of CD's and Itunes Albums. Therefore if we make this video as if it was a live performance then it gives our new audience a hype of what it will be like to see The Walls live. Some examples of bands who have incorporated these ideas are; The Rolling Stones, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Beatles, The Hives, Buddy Holly, Kings of Leon and The Arctic Monkeys.

Music Biz Academy states that 'the music business is very fond of contracts and that its business'. This results in money taken from the artist when they put on a show. Traditionally Synthetic and Organic artists experience this, but we would like to sell ourselves as independent and that money isn't our up-most important objective. Therefore our new video will not include the best effects and may include some footage where we aren't filming for the actual video. However many archaisms will be demonstrated as authenticity is one of our main focuses.



DIFFERENT is our main focus. We want to make this video unlike any other video produced in A2 Media Studies. A main narrative will not be included as we feel as it makes us too synthetic and that a live performance will be exciting and will accentuate our band type.

Interview with Target Audience

1. What music genres do you like?
I think what you can gather from interviewing two members of our target audience is that there are 2/3 leading genres in the music industry; Pop, Rock and Hip-Hop. It is also clear that what your friends listen to can have an affect on what music you listen to as you are influenced by those around you. As my target audience member said that he likes the "culture" in rock and that a lot of the fast paced songs mean you move around and this would be similar in our music video, as our song is also rather fast paced.

2. Have you been to any rock gigs recently?
My target audience had recently been to one gig to see a band called Basement. They are a band who have been around for a while but never reall 'broken through'. What I can gather though is that a lot of rock fans like the intense music of rock as the organic music and lyrics seem to be more relatable to the audience.

3. What do you think of the band Arctic Monkeys?
My target audience tend to like indie rock bands such as Arctic Monkeys, as they like their image and their rebellious lifestyle. They also like their sound and the fact that none of their songs sound the same or similar to other rock bands.

Parody vs Patiche

 Parody and Pastiche are both types of music videos and are both similar but have small differences, They are both examples of intertextuality. A parody music video is a video that intends to be humorous by exaggerating features of the original video or changing features such as the lyrics. A pastiche video is a music video that imitates or copies features such as techniques, theme, style etc. of the original music video. Though both have small differences and huge similarities they are different but thought as the same. A parody or pastiche is very popular nowadays as it allows anyone the chance to make a video at home and is an example of new digital media spread through technology such as handheld devices, web 2.0 like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, Parody/Pastiche music video are used to promote the artist and make the artist popular.

Teaser video from failed first shoot day

We thought that even if we were to use a new idea we would like to of gained something from our first performance element, so I decided to make a teaser video of The Walls in production of a new album, purely to get back into the editing status and add to a promotion campaign which is one of my specialties. We used the black and white and grainy effect to match the fake tales of San Francisco so we can incorporate a sense of authenticity but incorporate organic music with the instruments and the realistic footage used.

Band Tour Poster

I designed a tour poster for the band. I did this because to promote the band and show they have resources. This could also be used as merchandise as the band could sell signed copies... We stuck to the theme of black and white like the website as it is a similar theme to other indie rock bands such as Catfish & The bottle men

Account of shoot day

We decided to film the music video on a Friday after school as we finished early and the school would be empty so there would be no distractions and we could get it done. Overall, the filming took us around 3 hrs. 

We began filming the intro first. We filmed our media teacher Simon Wood because he has amateur experience in acting and is good at different accents. This was important as we weren't sure how we wanted the TV show presenter to act or sound. We trialled different accents, trying American, Russian and Australian. We wanted to create a 1950's Beatles era feel to it, where the presenter would be on one stage in the studio just in front of a black curtain, and the camera would cut to the other side of the studio where the band will play. We came to the conclusion that the american accent would be the best option. We wanted to create a pastiche rather than a parody and thought the american accent would be more realistic. We also filmed an outro where the presenter says "How 'bout that band!" This was a very common saying on those type of shows in america at the time. We only had to film the intro and outro twice as the presenter already knew what to say and we just had to perfect it.

We then moved into our school theatre which had a stage set up for the school production. We weren't happy with it and so got permission to move the units that makes the stage to change the shape to more of a "live music" feel. This took a while to decide on the best set but we wanted the video to look as similar to a live studio performance as possible. We wanted a small stage either side, so the lead guitarist and bassist were more visible and to create more of a concert feel. We also raised the drums slightly above the main walk way so that the drummer could be more visible behind the lead singer. By raising the drummer even more we had to take health and safety precautions to make sure that the stage was save and had no chance of breaking. As you can see on the right is a lectern. We covered the lectern with black curtains so that in the music video - which was going to be black and white anyway - it would blend in to the black curtains at the back. 

Luckily, we had the use of the tech box so we could use lighting and spotlights on the band. We had two options on how to film the song. We could either film many individual shots which would get confusing as we would forget where we were up to in the song. Or we could film the performance the whole way through from start to finish, at a number of different angles and then make sub-clips when editing. We decided to do both! We filmed the whole song with the performance around 6-7 times from different areas with different amounts of zoom e.g a wide shot, a close up of the lead singer, and close up of drummer. After that there were certain specific shots that we wanted to include in the music video such as capturing the vibrations of the bass drum and close up shots of the bassist and lead guitarist so we filmed them as well.