Performer;

I've got in contact with our performer via text and told her that we would like to be shooting sometime over the weekend and also Thursday afternoon.
One day over the weekend she'll have to do her own filming for her own media project but she's not too sure which day it will be yet but says she will contact me when she knows.
On thursday she has asked what sort of time will it be because she has an appointment and assignment to do for friday.

Plan for the week;

TUESDAY AFTERNOON- Planning what we will need for the rest of the week, arranging times with our performer and members of our group and changing one of the locations.
WEDNESDAY- Purchasing and getting together necessary mise en scene for shooting, also continue with our digipak ideas.
THURSDAY- Afternoon; Filming at Long Road, the 'glass house' footage with costume and props
FRIDAY- Go through the footage we filmed on Thursday, check it's correct, make sure there are no obvious errors and think up some more ideas related to this footage which we may be able to blend with others for the rest.
THE WEEKEND- Filming in three locations; Histon(Forest area), Bottisham(The Barn) and Burwell(Outside a church, graveyard)

Visual Art book;

During half term, my boyfriend bought me this lovely book which is basically just full of original drawings and shows the artwork used in the new film aswell as giving descriptions of characters and describing the darker side to the movie as a whole.

The visual guide is a great influence for our music video and I will bring it into College tomorrow or Thursday to show the rest of my group.

Digipak Example;

Here is my front cover idea for my digipak from an image found on Flickr.

My idea from this is to use(as the pink 'background') is the first page from a Tim Burton book which is based on the visual art of his new motion picture Alice in Wonderland, which is a purple/pink page which has a collage of teacups and saucers all over. I also need to get an Alice in Wonderland novel which includes the special Dormouse page which has the font in the shape of a tail. I need this because I think it's wonderfully set up and would work well because only true fans of Lewis Caroll would understand the link with this.
My mother has antique teacups(Pictures coming soon) which are white with a gold rim and a red rose on the side and two of my friends happen to have Pocket Watches which they are happy for me to use, even though I just need one.

The rest of the digipak will include imagery like this, except the booklet(or perhaps the inside) will include imagery of our performer too but possibly so it's not noticeable what she looks like.

I wish to continue the effects used on this photo and hopefully will be done in our video, throughout the digipak, it gives a dark, old feel to the whole piece, which I think works quite well.

On Thursday, I went to the Central Library in Cambridge and asked if there was any books relating to music videos or Lewis Carroll.
We checked on the library database and found one book, Alice through the looking glass and what Alice found there, which is a shame because this is the second book in Lewis Carroll's Alice collection and doesn't include the page I wish to find, the one about the mouse and the wording is shaped in the style of it's tail.

Disney Poster book;

At home, I have a Disney poster book with all of their first artwork inside for their first motion pictures.

As you can see, they were all hand drawn and are not images from the actual films but created especially for the posters.

They also use different colouring to the actual film designs which makes me wonder maybe they designed the posters and advertisement before producing the actual films themselves.

Related material- Around my room;

During last week, I took some photographs of things that relate to our video.

Test footage video;

L3 TEST FOOTAGE 2 - Angelica, Liam and Sophie from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

Very rough cut w/o lip syncing

Test Footage;

Today at Coleridge I edited the test footage together, very roughly may I add, using final cut express.

The footage from yesterday was actually very long which was quite surprising and because Fran wasn't lip syncing the actual lyrics it has turned out quite confusing.

Digipak ideas;

In yesterday's session we were working on drafts/ideas for our digipak.

Now, I have thought about this quite a bit during the course of this assessment, and have immediately thought to make it abstract, with the front cover being a page from Alice in Wonderland opened, the page about the mouse with a pocket watch over it and possibly a rabbit standing in the top corner and a pretty antique cup on the other.

I found an image on Flickr which is quite like this, minus the rabbit and pocket watch, so I edited over on photoshop making it seem like an old picture using the grain element and darken the contrasting, also adding the official logo for the band and found a font using www.dafont.com

Filming our performer;

This afternoon, due to not having any lessons, we shot some test footage with our performer in the 'Long Road Garden'.

Because it was just for the test footage, we had no costumes and did not try any special ideas- just kept it basic and it was more really about seeing how our chosen performer works and if she is convincing enough to be in our video after all.

Luckily, Fran was great, she took the whole thing seriously and I felt was really convincing at miming a song. She also told me that she's listened to the song quite a bit and has printed off a copy of the lyrics at home and she has learnt most of them, overall she seems very enthuastic about the whole video which is great news for us.

It was a very cold afternoon so it may of seemed a bit rushed and during the 'forest' footage, it may seem a bit dark because the brightness of the camera was set to the lowest, but because we were outside in the sunlight we didn't notice this problem until we moved to a different location.

As we were travelling to our first location a thought rushed in to my head with the whole weird glasshouse type thing in that area, I thought it could be a substitute for the barn then had another great thought, Fran can fake she's too big for it, like Alice does to the house in Alice in Wonderland, because the camera was lightened aswell I think this was overall the best footage we shot and because it was at the very end, Fran was at her strongest too.

I think that maybe we might use those locations in our actual video aswell as the barn but the only problem with the forest location is that you can see cars drive past most of the time.

Examples of shots.

SOPHIE/ANGELICA/LIAM TEST FOOTAGE VIDEO 1 from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

CHECKPOINT SO FAR:

Editing together example footage
Shapes video
Karaoke video
Favourite official music video
Ancillary practice
Media personal statement
My Generation(Band footage)
Other official music videos
Previous student videos good and bad
Checklist
Youtube(Fan made) music video
Jasmine's work
Views of chosen music
Preferred song choice- including examples of other music videos and what my ideas are
Second choice- including examples of other music videos and what my ideas are
Lyric from song- what it reminds me of
Stages of production
Promotional postcard and moodboard for presentation
Keynote
Contacting our first choice
Brief research on the band
Lyrics to our chosen song
Permission from band's management
Draft of my treatment
Music video director research- Chris Cunningham
First draft for our chosen song
Treatment feedback
Pitching for our song choice- how our presentation went, includes feedback
Chosen performer
Planning our storyboard
Photos of one of the chosen locations
Costume ideas- include dresses which I own and ones we might be able to get for the performer
Makeup ideas
Mise En Scene ideas
Photoshop editing ideas- finding a Flickr artist
The 'book' ideas
Sepia effect
Finding a suitable wig
Reply from our performer
The darkside- Images found on Flickr which can influence the darker side to our video
Going over our example footage
Uploaded animatic
Lyrics for the performer to learn

This Afternoon.

We went off and filmed some test footage, even though it was freezing outside!
We filmed behind the college by the art block where there's a woodland setting.
Sophie 'performed' as the girl wandering through the woodland.
We filmed a variety of different shots including the extreme closeup, panning and mid-shots.

As well as this, I thought it would be quite a good idea to print out the lyrics for Fran, our performer so she can get a feel of where to come in and learn them off by heart for the actual performance. We're not too bothered if she gets them on the thursday because it's just test footage and I think if we got her to just learn all the lyrics now it'll be too rushed and it's just test footage, right?

Animatic.

MUSIC VIDEO ANIMATIC - SOPHIE, ANGELICA & LIAM from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

On Friday, Liam was away so it was just Sophie and I, I did the research into mise en scene ideas whilst Sophie drew out the animatic and took the photographs, unfortunately, they came out upside down so we both had to flip them the right way up before we uploaded them on to final cut express to edit the pictures together to create the animatic. I helped Sophie out with this, I slowed down a few sequences so they were in place correctly and also go with what we originally planned.

Today's session.

This morning, it was only Sophie and I in the lesson so we figured out a plan for today together and I went over that our performer is happy to film on thursday afternoon for our test footage.

Now, we are hoping to go out and just do some example shots in a woodland location which might include panning and tracking so we may need a dolly.
Unfortunately, we do not have our performer for this task, due to it being too late notice, so either someone else in our class or either Sophie or I will 'perform' whilst Liam is on the camera and either one of us take a few photographs of what we're doing and where.

These images are yet again ones I found using Flickr, this time looking up 'dark fairy tale' to get this selection of imagery.

Some of them consist of 'shadowy' figures lurking behind the character, which is exactly what we wish to achieve in our video, others show costume and mise en scene ideas as well as her facial expressions whilst wandering around the woodland.

Yesterday

I bumped into our chosen performer, Fran, and explained what I put in a facebook message to her earlier, this included when we'd like to film and what for(test footage) on Thursday afternoon, she said that's fine and she's looking forward to the whole thing.

Sophie's Discovery;

During the weekend, Sophie messaged me via facebook to tell me about a wig she had found whilst browsing through the Argos catalogue, it costs £9.99.
We will still look around for a more cheaper price in alternative shops.

Reply from Performer;

As I checked my facebook this morning I realised that Fran had replied!
She said that she likes our song and has a variety of bows and what times she is available for filming inside college:

Because of this, we are hoping to do a bit of test footage filming Thursday afternoon, and edit the footage on friday.

Looking for a wig.

Most of the blonde wigs I have looked at look fake and tacky, I'm not too sure if this effect could work in our piece, however it is meant to look unrealistic in a way. We want it to be slightly curly/wavy aswell and below the shoulders.

Sepia Effect;s

For the forest sequence or the barn, the video could be in Sepia, except we do want to use colour aswell with the miscellaneous objects as the vibrant colours.

Here are some examples of images.

Book.

Here are yet some more images from Flickr.

The Book.- Flickr Photographer.

The style of book we want to achieve is an old hardback, quite rigid.

The pages want to look old and dark, on Flickr(again) I found a girl's Alice In Wonderland photo album where she has taken photos of herself and edited them on photoshop to get an old dark mysterious page effect which works really well.

- Her UN.

Mise En Scene.

Obviously, we're wanting our props to be quite miscellaneous, although with a Wonderland feel to them. I've been looking at Flickr and have picked out a few images which are good to reference to.

- The misc objects and what she's wearing, also the lighting in this photo.
-Post production of this, the colouring and the old books surrounding her, also her posture.
- Post Production, shot and rabbit.
- The editing on this image, we need a Fairytale style book in ours, this is a good reference for our photoshop use for this.
- Lighting and the reflection and angle.
- The umbrella just randomly flying off, contrasting the rest of the image's dark colouring aswell.