Transitions

As I continue to use iMovie I continue to find new things that I can do with it. For instance, I can use transitions to smoothly flow from one clip to another. One way in which I have used this is when my actress gets 'pulled through the mirror' into an alternate colourful universe. I used the transition 'Ripple' as this looks as though she is being pulled through a portal. 

Continuing

At the moment I am still editing together my first draft of filming. It is important to try to edit together the whole video so that I can see which shots need to be improved and if I need to film any completely new shots.

So far I have discovered that one of my ideas for the first half of the video has not worked and so I now only have one location for a lot of the song. This could still work as there are many different shots and angles used, however, when re-filming some other shots I may try to get another location for this section.

There is about 11 seconds within the first half of my filming that I have no video for. I realised that the filming that I did doesn't fit well with that section of music. This will be a section that I will have to re-film but, for now, I have put in some filming that I did while testing out the camera so that I can still edit the rest of the clips to the correct part of the music.

Editing Practice

Since I have filmed most of my shots, I have put my music into iMovie and then tried to fit my video to it. In some shots my actress is ip syncing so it is important to get the video at the exact same time as the music. This has also given me a clear idea of what else I need to film and at what sections of the music so that next time I go to film, I know exactly which part of he music it needs to fit to.

iMovie

I have now uploaded all of my film from both cameras on to my computer. I will be using iMovie to fit all of my shots together along with the music. iMovie is also good for viewing what I have filmed as it shows each clip like this; 

This allows to me to see in more detail what is in each shot and is useful if I am looking for a certain shot as it is easier to find.

Filming

I have now filmed a lot of different scenes and have gained at least 25 minutes of filming in a number of different locations. My actors were all in costume and acting as I needed and I believe that I have got enough footage to make my whole video. However, I will be re-filming some parts because of lighting difficulties and the whether.

Wednesday

Today I got a lot of my filming done in two of my locations. We first checked the tide and sunset times for New Brighton beach to ensure that the beach would be available and to ensure that we got there in time to have the sun setting in the video. However, this is the section of my filming that I will have to re-film. I did not take into account the cloudy weather and so the sunset and beautiful sky that I wished for did not show through the clouds. Also, I did not realise how dark it got very quickly and so I was still using my camera without a light and so a lot of my filming is too dark to see. I realised near the end of this section of filming that I needed a light but only had time to take 2 videos. These both look very good and will hopefully be used in my over all music video. I will be arranging a meeting with my actors again to re-film this section.

I also filmed a film in my back garden with sparklers. This is an effect which I really like but the lighting in my test shots was not great. This time, to make the garden look better and also to provide more light, I put fairy lights along a straight washing line at the bottom of the garden and also on a tree so that this effect would be in the background. I also used the camera with a light so that it would pick out my actors. I managed to get a huge amount of filming done with the sparklers and I have more than enough shots to choose from for my music video.

Plans

On Wednesday I will be filming the beginning the dusk/night time parts of my music video. For these shots I will be using these locations:

1. The Beach
2. My Garden

On Thursday night I will be filming the inside shots early in the day so that we have natural lighting through the windows to film with. I will only be using indoor locations for all of this filming including:

1. A Bedroom
2. An Empty Room

Editing

After doing my test shots I have realised that for the night-time/darker parts of my video, I will need to use a camera with a light. However, my camera does not have a light available when videoing. I have booked to use one of our school's camcorders for the half-term week and also a tripod so that I can try out different shots.

Trying Ideas

On friday night I got together 2 of my actors; Amy and Mollie, to help me test out some shots and effects.

I bought 20 sparklers and when it got dark, I got my song and camera and we tried out some test shots.

This was important because now I realise that I need a lot more sparklers than I had originally   thought and the sparklers only look good from certain angles. 

Doing these test shots has allowed me to find the best angles and light to film this part of the video and now I can be more time efficient on my actual filming days.

Here are some screen shots from the video's that I took:

Permissions Letter

After deciding on the song that I would like to use, I decided that I would have to write to Paramore's Label, 'Fuled by Ramen' to ask if I could use the song as it is copyrighted.

I sent the following letter:

Re:     The Oldershaw Academy 

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am constructing a Music Video for my OCR A2 media coursework. 

I understand that you are the owner of the copyright in the musical composition “Ain’t it Fun” and would like your permission to include the song in my Video.

The song will not be used for public use and there is no intention to make any profit from the song. It is simply to support my OCR coursework and the audience is limited for education purposes only.

Your signature below, under “confirmed by,” will indicate that you will agree to permit this use without payment of a fee.  Please let me know if you have any questions concerning this license.  Also would you please let me know as soon as possible if this song cannot be licensed so that artistic changes may be made in the songs to be included in the production.  You can reach me in care of:

Mike Liddell

The Oldershaw Academy,

Valkyrie Road,

Wallasey,

Wirral

CH45 4RJ

0151 638 2800

Or

Thank you for your help with this matter and I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours Sincerely, Chloe Francom

M.G. Liddell                                               Mr M.G. Liddell

                                                                        Senior Deputy Head Teacher

                                                                        & Media Department

Song and Inspiration

The song that I have definitely decided on now is 'Ain't it Fun' by Paramore:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFEmTsfFL5A

I have taken inspiration from a number of video's such as the actual video of 'Ain't it fun'. However, the video that I have taken the most inspiration from is 'Still Into You' also by Paramore.
This video mainly includes just the band, 3 people, having fun with lots of different props such as;

• balloons
• fireworks
• sparklers
• paddles
• cakes
• bikes
• lights

I think a video similar to this would be a lot of fun to film and create and would be challenging but rewarding. It also needs some acting but nothing overly serious which I believe would be more achievable.

I will be looking to use some similar shots from this video because I think they are very good, achievable shots and ideas, but I will mainly be taking inspiration from the aspect of fun in this video.

Here are some of the shots which I will be looking to achieve similar ones to:

Updates

I now have all 3 of my actors for my video;

• Amy Francom - 18 years old
• Mollie Kelly - 17 years old
• Kyle Hughes - 18 years old

All 3 actors are available next wednesday night and thursday all day to film the main parts of the video.

I have ordered 300 balloons that will arrive before I need to film and I will also be buying sparklers and feathers to use.

Production Name

I have decided to name my production company Marvellous Productions. Even though I am working alone for this assignment, I will be getting help from friends for example, if I need 2 simultaneous shots at the same time. I will also need help setting up and collecting props. For this I will ask friends to help and that is why I have given my production company a name - to include those people also.
I have also made a logo for my company so that I can mark my work with it to ensure that it cannot be used without my permission.

Confirmed Actors

I have now asked 2 of my actors and they have confirmed that they will take part in my video. These are both female aged 17-18. I will need one more actor to be in my video and I would like this to be a male around the same age. I would like to include a male as it may open up more opportunities and it would also possibly bring in a wider audience. I will discuss with my 2 confirmed actresses who would be a good fit to be the third person.

They have both agreed to film some time in October half term, however, the specific days have not yet been confirmed. I will try to get a good deal of the filming done in this time so that I have something to work with.

My 2 confirmed actresses have agreed to get together with me this Friday evening to test out some ideas that i have. This will allow me to practice with a camera and to see what effects different props and lighting give before starting my real video. This will make it easier when I start filming because I will have an idea of what looks good and I will hopefully have to take less test-shots.

Location & Props

A few locations that I want to test out for my video are:
- My House
- My Garden
- The Beach
- New Brighton Rocks
- School Field
- Drama Studio

Props I will need:
- Balloons
- Flour
- Water Balloons
- Feathers
- Detachable mirror and frame
- Leaf blower
- Sparklers

Roles

The main roles that I will be taking on since I will be working alone are;

• Director - This is possibly the most important role as the director ensures that everything goes to plan and that the actors and helpers know what they are supposed to be doing.

• Camera man - I will be filming the majority of the shots myself, however, I will have help from one person in case I wish to film multiple shots at the same time.

• Props - I will be providing all of the props myself and my helper will also be helping me to set them up and keep them in place (Balloons).

My Chosen Brief

The brief that I have chosen is brief number 1; A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

• a website homepage for the band;
• a digipak for the album's release;
• a magazine advertisement for the digipak.

This is the brief which I believe I am most suited to and I will enjoy doing the most. Because I will enjoy it, I will therefore do it to the best of my abilities and hopefully achieve my target.

Research - Brief 6

Brief six is not my favourite out of all of the briefs as I like the idea of a producing a title sequence, however, I do not think that an original children's TV drama would be easy to write and create.

Whilst researching the Children's TV dramas i found that most of the title sequences are very enthusiastic and the majority include music. I think that this would probably be more difficult than the other two briefs that I have researched.

Victorious

Drake and Josh

Sam & Cat

These three examples are all very different but they would be the type that I would try to create. "Drake and Josh" is the simplest opening sequence to a children'far s TV drama that I have seen so within my research. However, this sequence is quite old and I believe that it could be done to a better standard and quality now.

"Sam & Cat" would probably be the hardest type of opening sequence since there are a lot of digital effects and techniques used. It would be easily filmed since there are not too many people in it, meaning less actors, and there are no special effects in the actual filming. However, if I was in a group with somebody who had good skills with effects and editing, then perhaps this one would be achievable.

Research - Brief 2

Brief two seems like it would be a slightly tricky task but there is a lot to choose from when doing a film trailer. The range of genre's means that there are a lot of different options with this brief which would be interesting to research.

The smaller tasks are my favourite out of all of the possible briefs as I like to be artistic with drawing and creating images so the magazine front cover and poster would be great for me to do.

I have researched on YouTube.com and found some different genre's of films. Personally my favourite films are action and superhero films, however, for this task I don't believe that these genres would be the best to do because the special effects used would be very hard to re-create. Instead, I think that genre's such as horror and comedy would be the best for this task.

HORROR

However, I think there are some horror films that would be too difficult to do because of the equipment used in the film and also the special effects used, such as This One.

ROMANTIC COMEDY

Comedies or romantic comedies are probably the easiest type of film trailer to produce in terms of the use of CGI or special effects as there are normally none/very little. However, these films do require a high standard of acting and a very good script.

Research - Brief 1

Brief one seems like an approachable and interesting task. I like the idea of doing a promo video as I believe that I could find a number of people willing to be in this video and who look like a professional band. I also love music so this would be a fun challenge for me and my group to create our own music promo video. I also believe that unlike some of the other tasks, this task would be completable with the equipment and settings that we have.

The smaller tasks also seem interesting such as a magazine advertisement for the digipak. I think this would also be a fun task to create something that we see so much of every single day - an advertisement.

I have researched on YouTube.com and found some music video's that are semi-professional and would be similar to the work that we would be able to produce.

Video 1

Video 2

These Video's are of a local band called 'Guardians'. The video's were filmed by a semi-professional film maker and were filmed around the area. This will be the same area that we are able to film in which makes them good examples for us to look at.

This is another video that is slightly more difficult but is also doable and would I think that it would be very interesting to create a video similar to this.

Video 3

My suggestions

After looking at the 14 briefs, I have narrowed it down to three briefs to three that I would be interested in researching further into. These three are;

Brief 1: A promotion package for the release of an album.

Brief 2: A promotion package for a new film.

Brief 6: A selection of materials related to an original children's TV drama.

Video

Things we did well:

• We used our time efficiently and we able to finish our video in the time given.
• We were all able to take on different roles and help each other when needed.
• Everybody in our group had a equal voice when it came to decisions, however, the director was able to efficiently make decisions.
• All come together at the same time to make our video.

Things I would change:

• More planning and research will be needed for the main task.
• Make sure that we look at multiple places to film and choose the most appropriate.
• Film in more than one place to make our video seem more authentic.
• Record some dialogue to put over the top of our video.
• As we filmed on 2 separate days, the costume of the main character differed. This did not affect our video too much but I would make sure next time that the costumes remained consistant to avoid continuity errors.
• We would ensure that the actors/actresses got more rehearsal time.

Editing

We edited our shots together using an i-Mac program called i-Movie. This program was very easy to learn how to use and allowed us to put our shots together professionally. Not only did it allow us to cut our shots down to size and run them after each other, it also allowed us to put effects any of the shots and add music or sound effects to the background for any length of time. The editing was a group effort as we all sat around one computer to watch and give our opinions. I began the editing with opinions from the rest of my group on which looked better so we could all make decisions together. Then I took a back seat for the rest of the editing and gave my opinions when needed.

Filming

Since we only had a very short amount of time to complete this task, our filming had to be done quickly but as professional as possible. It took a few practice shots to get used to using the camera but we quickly figured everything out. We filmed most shots about two or three times to ensure that we had the whole shot without any mistakes and, when it came to editing, we would be able to choose the best of the shots to use in our finished clip. On our storyboard we had 12 shots. However, this was a maximum of what we could do and we only ended up doing 8 so we could do the 8 shots better and spend more time on those.

We decided on the best location even though we only had a limited space to use. This space was inside and not busy so we would not get people walking through our shots. We also chose an area with a door as one of our shots needed a closing and opening door or lift.

We needed two props; a jacket and a bandage. We used an old white tea towel as a bandage and I provided a jacket to be used.

Storyboard

I was chosen to draw the storyboard onto our template as I enjoy being artistic. We first got up the real trailer from the internet and decided which scenes were doable and could be completed within the time scale and with the amount of people in our group. We decided on "Lucy" because this film focused on one main character and so we did not need to call in any extra people to be actors. We chose the first 12 shots which lasted about 30 seconds, cutting out one short shot which had lots of people in it. Also, the set did not seem to difficult to recreate which was key as we did not have much choice of set for this particular task.

Real lucy trailer HERE

Roles within our group

We chose to recreate part of the film trailer "Lucy". For this we needed a main actress and then some smaller acting roles. All of our group had different roles in order to make our trailer well. My first role was to be the actress but after trying a few shots I realised this role wasn't right for me and out group made a decision to put somebody else in that position. My role then changed and I became the cameraman. We also had someone in charge of costume/props (such as the bandage and jacket) and some artistic minds to watch the real trailer as we were creating ours to ensure that we used the correct camera angles. The director in our group was not one specific person, but instead we all had our own input as this was a very quick task and we could not be sure that our whole group would be present every day.

My Liddel's Blog

OAADVANCEDMEDIA.blogspot.com