Evaluation Task 1...

Performance - As a group we decided that, whilst we needed a performance element, we didn’t want a normal one. In attempt to find a middle ground we made the piano look like it was playing itself. This allowed us to follow the classic music video convention of a performance element, but twist it in a way where it wasn’t derivative.

Colour/Lighting – We wanted to set the tone of our video as ethereal and yet slightly moody, so the lighting was neutral if not sometimes cold. The colours in the video were muted and reflected the melancholic feel of the song.

Costume – The costume in our video reflected the style of the song and the audience it is intended for.  Our artist is dressed in skinny jeans, smart shoes and a shirt or coat depending on the setting. He was styled with pieces which indicate ‘indie’ culture, which would more likely appeal to this young, cultured, fashionable audience the song is intended for.

Set – The set needed to establish the type of artist we were using and the music genre he represents. The video was split between an old, abandoned house and a white studio. Both locations were sparse, with very few props involved, emphasising his loneliness and troubled nature which supports his star image.

Camera – Throughout our video we used a lot of MCUs, allowing action to be seen whilst staying close enough to our artist to permit his emotions and facial expressions to show.

Editing – In order to mirror the pace and rhythm of the song we used relatively long, still shots throughout the majority of the video. However this was not the case during the ballerina’s dance sequence, where in order to make a more dynamic sequence, the cuts became much faster. Whilst this may not have been conventional, the group found this faster cutting to work in this case.

The CD cover we designed for our artist remained cohesive with his star image and the style of the video, using repeated motifs of the wallpaper, polaroid and handwriting which all appeared in the film. The cover also managed to remain in keeing with the style of the alternative/indie genre we were trying to go for, with a specific colour scheme and the currently popular polaroid/vintage look it has. Below are examples of real world covers.

Promotional Poster...

Video Diary...

Here is a video and diary from over the 3 days we shot for your enjoyment...

Day 3 of the Shoot...

The last mini part of our shoot was the footage which will be placed within a Polaroid frame to create a magical moving image. It consisted of Paula, dressed in her ballerina costume, lighting and setting off a Chinese lantern. This is the kind of look we were going for, except in a field and in late afternoon.

We only had one lantern so this was a one take situation, with a high chance of failure due to the unstable nature of setting a huge piece of paper on fire on a windy day. But we took that chance. We set the camera in place and set it on record before we had started, for fear of a frantic run for the camera when things didn’t go to plan.
Whilst Paula got changed, it took 3 of us to light the lantern and hold it up. I handed my part over to Paula so I could go back to the camera and check the focus. After the recommended 2 minutes of filling the lantern with hot air, Helena and Niall ran out of view of the camera leaving Paula holding onto the rapidly rising lantern.
We decided it was time to let the lantern go, and it gracefully blew several metres sideways before crashing onto the grass. However Paula managed to grab it before it set itself on fire, and let it go again. This time it rose up perfectly and just kept going. Over the school. Over the canteen. It just kept going up until it was a tiny dot in the sky, flying into the surrey hills.

Hopefully it’ll be in focus.

Day 2 of the Shoot...

The second half of the shoot took place at Leith Hill Place, and our actor was to walk around the house, bringing things back to life. This half of the video was scheduled for a morning slot and we drove over for around 10am.

Our first shot was in a long corridor, our actor is walking along it towards a slowly opening door which has a bright light coming from it. In order to create this ‘magical’ opening door, I wrapped a piece of string around the handle. Luckily, that side of the door is partially cropped out sand underexposed, so this basic put together technique worked really well and created the eerie feel we were hoping for. We had a few problems with the lights, we blew the fuse in one of the extension cords, causing this sequence to take us quite a long time to do. After that we shot the staircase sequence and realised it was lunch time. Luckily for us it was a Wednesday, allowing us to run over into the afternoons activity programme and continue shooting after our lunch break.

Post lunch we split off into 2 teams, half the group shooting several of the regeneration sequences and the rest of the lip sync, whilst Paula and I shot the ballerina sequence, starring Paula as a toy come ballerina who plays out a dance sequence. We had placed her in front of a window, which meant we needed to light her as she appeared as a silhouette. We set up 2 lights which unfortunately threw hotspots  onto the shiny painted surface of the window frame. We shot from most possible angles and captured most sections of Paula’s body whilst she was dancing, and then went on to shoot the ballerina inside the music box.

We regrouped to get the final shots of our actor picking up the ballerina box and setting it go. The light had changed considerably in this time and it was dark outside, so we shot away from the windows in an attempt to keep continuity.

Day 1 of the shoot...

The first half of our shoot took place on the afternoon of the 17^th, a post lunch studio setting. The night before we had helped paint our white room, hauled out our hollow piano from the back of a shipping container, and cleaned a huge piece of Perspex, which made up the performance segment of our video. Now, with those necessary props in place we were ready to start filming.

We followed a half improvised, half written shoot schedule, capturing images of the hands on the piano (supplied by our lovely hand double, always make sure your actor can actually play the instrument you need). Luckily for us our actors hands were similar enough and the 2 bits of footage cut together fine. We also shot most of the lip syncing and a few artsy, shallow depth of field shots which we had the time to do. A difficulty arose where our actor was tense on camera. He managed to fidget and maintain ‘panic eyes’ throughout the entirety of the afternoon, making it very difficult for us when logging our footage. He also refused to spit out his gum despite being told constantly to “Stop chewing!”, meaning again we have been compromised when editing.

We got to a part of the shoot we were all nervous and yet excited about, drawing onto the Perspex as if drawing on nothing.  We struggled with how to get the surprisingly heavy piece of Perspex upright without a complex bracketing structure. In the end, we had a man either end of the perspex kindly holding it up for us, and used carefully placed masking tape to guide our actor as to where he was allowed to draw.  Despite one tiny hiccup in the first take, involving a spelling mistake with our artist’s name, ‘Peter and the Wolf’, the footage has come out really well and the drawings have given the effect that we were looking for.

Unfortunately as the day drew to a close, we ran out of time to do one shot idea which I was keen to do, where we threw purple paint over our actor to then slow it down in post editing. However overall the day was a success and we all left with a feeling of relief that it wasn’t a giant failure.

Peter and the Wolf music video; The making of...

Here's our 'making of video' compiled from footage shot on the 2 days. Enjoy!