EDITING OUR POP VIDEO

Assessable link to pop videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/hurtwoodhousemedia

Our pop has been through a huge editing process. Something that started out very simply became quite complicated. We began editing using Final Cut Pro by putting the whole song filmed in a wide shot down and then we began to add different shots in throughout working around our original wide angle that ran the whole way through. We edited the fast bits of the song by cutting each quick shot to the beat in order to create movement and excitement throughout these bits of the song. These bits worked really well and had a great visual effect but the begging did not work so well, we changed the wide angle shot to mid shots of her with pans, but we then came to realise that it was not necessary for her to be lip singing in the begging and as we had so many beautiful slow motion shots from different angles in different styles we decided to use the slow motion shots throughout all the slow bits as this gave the video another layer and more meaning. It allows the audience into the lead singers world a lot more as they feel that because she is not singing the song seems like a thought process of hers and they feel as they are almost in her head and they are being let into her world and her thoughts.


We were quite careful with continuity and discontinuity in our video. At times we wanted discontinuity as it subverted the expectations of a normal video and it also added to the pace and uniqueness of the song and the singer. Our video also does not have a narrative so it was not to vital to have perfect continuity throughout. But we were very careful with some visual elements of continuity as we wanted to make sure that things like her hair were the same from shot to shot as we were constantly cutting shots and it would look like a mistake at times if we were not careful.


We used Adobe After affects in order to give our video a diffused glow around the edges of our shots and we wanted to create a sense of mystery and a dreamlike subconscious quality to our video.

SHOOT DAY

We arrived on the set of our shoot day with a rather vague idea of what we were going to do that day. We knew what we wanted to achieve but we knew we had a tough job to do in order to get there. We all arrived at 9 O’clock and we began to dress our band and do hair and makeup. We then began putting all our set together and making sure we had everything in order. We set up the swing inside our bird cage and we dressed the swing with vines and flowers in order to make our set more atmospheric. We then began setting up our camera and our lights. We then all began deciding on what roles we would each be apart of throughout the day, we decided to alternate all the different roles throughout like who was on play back, camera, lights and costume. As we all got on well within our group it showed us just how important this is in order to work well together.


We then began shooting, we began with a wide shot of the cage but this then led us to realise that the floor of the studio was effecting our shot and was not very attractive on screen, so we went to the theatre to get black material to cover the floor so it would not cause a distraction on screen. We then tried again and we started using the dry ice machine which then led to other problems, the fan was not working properly and the smoke began to fill the camera and it soon became very difficult to see what was happening we also then set off the smoke alarm all of this led to more delays. Once we had sorted out the smoke alarm and the floor we started again. We began shooting and then came to realise that the lighting was not right at all as it was causing shadows across Karis, our lead singers face. It was also too dark when she swung to the back of the cage and the too bright or too shadowed when she moved forward. We finally got everything sorted out and we began our shoot day for the third time hoping we had everything sorted out. It was now 10:30 and as we started so late it led to other problems with time management later on.


Once we had sorted out all our technical problems this gave us the freedom to continue filming and be creative with our ideas in the video. We began filming a few full wide shots, then mid shots and the close ups to make sure we had all the basics of what we need. And then we began shooting a few slow motion close ups on things such as Karis’ face her clothes and other things like her eyes or hands. Once we had a good amount of simple and slow motion shots we then began to introduce the feathers into a later part of our song. We had a cherry picker and a ladder on either side of the cage with people standing on it holding a XXXX filled with feathers, we had a person standing in front of the camera dropping feathers and then three people holding up fans and throwing the feathers in front of them making them all blow into the cage. We had to shoot this part over and over again as we had to get the feathers just right as they all had to begin to fall at the same time. This became difficult as we had so many feathers and they had been blown everywhere but all of this effort, although also very time consuming was worth it as it had a very vital and atmospheric effect on the outcome of our video.


We then began to film the rest of the band, we moved away the bird cage and set up the green screen but as we had lost a lot of vital time earlier in the day we did not have much time to film the band, we also did not have enough time to get all our green screen prepared so we decided to film the band on a black background with the same black floor as the bird cage. We only needed a few good shots of the band as we were going to inter cut the shots of the band very quickly with the bird cage sequences. But we also need the feathers so fall at the same point in the song as it had before. We had four band members, a guitarist, a drummer, a harpist and then our lead singer. We set up the band in a triangle like shape so that our lead singer was at the top of the triangle and the focus on the screen with the rest of the band members on the hot spots on the rule of thirds. We had a few good shots of our band members with the feathers and a few close ups of their instruments but as we had wasted a lot of time in the morning we had to stop filming in order to let the group that were filming in the studio the next day set up for their shoot. So we began to pack up our things and take our footage up to the edit suite. We then had to tidy up all our mess and pick up every single feather we had used, this took almost as long as our whole shoot day had!


We filmed our whole pop video using a JCV500 HD camera which gave us the best opportunity to have a very high quality video. We also used the cherry picker at times throughout our video, we used it in order to make the feathers fall from above and we used it to film a birds eye view shot from inside the cage. We knew that we wanted to use tracks in our filming as we originally wanted to start our video with a close up on Karis’ face and then track back to reveal the cage into a wide shot. We set track around the cage in order to get a 180 pan of the cage from left to right and right to left this had a good effect on a lot of our shots as it let the audience feel intermit with the shot and feel apart of the scene.


I had many shots that I loved from our shoot day but my two favourite were two of the slow motion shots we did. The first one being the shot we filmed using the cherry picker form above the cage. The shot began above Karis on the swing and it began to zoom in to her face as she spun round on the swing looking up into the camera. It was all filmed in slow motion and I think this shot really worked as it is not a normal over used shot, it is unique and I think it will keep audiences interested. The other shot that I think really worked was another slow motion shot that we filmed right at the end. This shot was a tight close up on Karis’ face with feathers blowing towards her as she moved closer to the camera and closer to the bars. This shot really works as it lets the audience feel intermit with the singer as she connects to the camera staring straight into it.
Some shots that we have come to realise that do not work are some of the close ups of the band members playing their instruments as many of them were unsure of the song or how to play the instruments. Our close ups of the instruments did not look realistic as they were not playing the same notes as the notes in the song. And this is why they do not work with the rest of our video, and as we were running out of time towards the end of the day we did not have the time we needed to perfect the filming of the band.


Overall our day went really well. Although we got off to a slow start after having wasted a lot of time sorting out some of the technical problems in the morning. Once we had got going we all worked really well and the atmosphere throughout the day was positive and energetic and I really enjoyed the whole experience as well as the bad as I have learnt from it. I think that together we have created a really good video different from anyone else’s with some really good visuals and that we all balanced each other out really well throughout the day alternating our roles as cameramen directors and everything else that needed top be done.

POP VIDEO PERMISSIONS LETTER

Head of Copyright and Legal Affairs
Universal Island Records Ltd.
22 St Peter Square
London
W6 9NW September 30th 2010


Dear Sir or Madam

We are a group of A Level students working on an A Level project for a qualification in Media Studies. We are writing to request permission to use the following track as part of this project:

‘Bird Song’ by Florence and the Machine

With your permission the track would be used as the accompaniment to a short form video that is made purely for assessment purposes and will have no commercial usage. Only members of the school community and the assessor of the examination board will view the video.

The artist and the copyright holder will of course be fully recognized in the pre-production and evaluation material that accompanies the project. We can also include a full copyright notice if required both in the planning material and on the video itself.

Yours sincerely

Sophie Evans
Hurtwood House School

An image of Amy Winewhouse, an Island Records star.

INTRODUCTION TO THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

INTRODUCTION TO MUSIC INDUSTRY

Musical taste can differentiate depending on the person, it can be a controversial topic almost to the point of tribalism. Tribalism is contentious because people feel that it often defines or signifies their personality and lifestyle. It has become an entire culture, it’s not just about the music but the way you dress, speak or act. It gives people something to be apart of or to follow. The music industry is made up of four trans-national corporations also known as ‘the majors’, which are: Universal, Sony/BMG and EMI. Each major has a smaller subsidiary in order to reach all different kinds of target audiences or genres, much like the film industry. These are known as ‘major independents’, they have very little financial connection with the majors yet they fall under their name. The majors have well known stars and will often spend a million or more on a project whereas ‘independents’ have up and coming stars and will spend 100,00 on a project. Then there are the minis which are the category that we fall under as we have a smaller project with a smaller budget.

We all have to accept that it is a ‘dynamic tension’ that exists between the artistic and commercial forces that support the success of this vast media business. There is a tension between the organic and the synthetic. An organic band is a band that is created out of the love for the music, the music comes first and then from that a band is naturally formed. Whereas a synthetic band is a manufactured band, often created to fill a gap in the market. These bands are often very politically correct so that a wide range of audience will be able to relate to them. Our band is organic as although we have created them they were created to work with the music, the music was not created to work around a band. They also have a personality and are very accessible or approachable to their audience.

A music video is there to serve many different purposes, it promotes the band or song as well as creating a ‘star image’ for them. It also informs and entertains and reinforces, adapts or undermines the ‘meanings’ of a song. And as our music video is the first introduction that people will see to our band it is necessary to make an impact.
Our band has a relatively wide target audience as I think older generations may like the song and the video as it is not to ‘modern’ and younger audiences will all know and like the song as the band is very popular at the moment. The video can get a lot of publicity on a wider range of television as it is not offensive, it can be shown of children’s T.V as it is a very visual video and they will enjoy those aspects even if they don’t understand it whereas older audiences will understand the concept of the video and enjoy it for that reason too.

There are huge threats to the music industry and there is a danger that a pop video will become defunct and irrelevant soon, as technology develops so do the resources for things such as internet downloading of videos, manufactured programs with live feeds and music television is becoming more mainstream. Illegal downloading websites have put music artists at great risk, as a person can buy their song and then copy it to many more who have not paid for it. Artist can own different shares in their ‘empire’ yet if you are an unknown name you could own 100% of everything that is worth nothing, or if you sell to a company, 10% of something. But if you sell to a huge company, such as one of the majors you can own 3% of a lot. Which are what many artists are doing, they then create their own brand of things or an ‘empire’ from there music which was their starting point. Victoria Beckham is an example of a woman who had a successful music carrier but now has brands of many things, like clothes and perfumes and has used her status from her previous singing carrier to get her there.

CALL SHEET

A call sheet is the film makers 'Bible' for the day. The crew will constantly be referring to it throughout the day as it has everything that is vital for the production to continue and move forward.






CALL SHEET

BIRD SONG MONDAY 8th NOVEMBER
GABBY MEECH
HEATHER SCHREUDER
SOPHIE EVANS

Contents

1. Production Team Page 2. Cast List Page 3. Equipment List 4. Studio Set Plan 5. Lighting 6.Props 7. Wardrobe 8. Schedule for the day 9. Storyboard 10. Song Lyrics 11. Shot List

Production Team
Heather Schreuder -07745096963
Gabby Meech -07866792821
Sophie Evans -07500775738

Cast List
Karis Arghiros Lead Singer
Tom Warhurst Drums
Freddie Eastham Guitar
Sophie Loughridge Harp


Equipment List Cameras: Sony PDI 50 JVC1500E
Tracking rails
Dolly
Smoke machine
Studio Set Plan
Human size bird cage
Swing inside the cage
Lighting Bird cage set: Warm colours and simple three point lighting.
Band set: bars across them as though shadowed by the bird cage.

Props :
What the school is providing:
Swing Bird Cage Guitar Drums Harp
What we are providing:
Vines & Flowers Feathers Old Microphone

Wardrobe Pretty Dress for main girl Shirt or tee shirts and jeans for other band members with accessories such as head bands necklaces and bracelets.


Lyrics

"Bird Song"

Well I didn't tell anyone, but a bird flew by.
Saw what I'd done. He set up a nest outside,
and he sang about what I'd become.
He sang so loud, sang so clear.
I was afraid all the neighbours would hear,
So I invited him in, just to reason with him.
I promised I wouldn't do it again.

But he sang louder and louder inside the house,
And no I couldn't get him out.
So I trapped him under a cardboard box.
stood on it to make him stop.
I picked up the bird and above the din I said
"That's the last song you'll ever sing".
Held him down, broke his neck,
Taught him a lesson he wouldn't forget.

But in my dreams began to creep
that old familiar tweet tweet tweet

I opened my mouth to scream and shout,
I waved my arms and flapped about.
But I couldn't scream and I couldn't shout,
couldn't scream and I couldn't shout.

I opened my mouth to scream and shout
waved my arms and flapped about
But I couldn't scream I couldn't shout,
The song was coming from my mouth.
From my mouth, X15


Schedule Morning 9:00-11:00 : Karis in the bird cage 11:00- 11:15 - Break 11:15 - 1 :00 : Proceed shooting Karis Afternoon 2:00 - 4:00: Shooting the band 4:00 - 4:15 - Break 4:15 - 6:00 : Proceed shooting the band
Shot List Camera angle 1 (tracking shot outwards): shot 1
Camera angle 2 (front without bars): 2, 11, 17, 12, 26, 15
Camera angle 3 (harp) : 3, 8
Camera angle 4(guitar) : 6, 9, 37, 35
Camera angle 5(Drums) : 5, 10, 38, 40
Camera angle 4 (feathers on their own) : 16, 33
Camera angle 5 (face shots of people and lond shot of band moving around) : 18, 19, 20, 21 22, 23, 24, 25
Camera angle 6 (Front on with bars): 29, 32, 31, 34, 39, 41, 43, 47
Camera angle 7 (Side with bars): 27, 28, 30, 36, 45, 48 Camera angle 8 (cat) : 42, 44, 46, 48
Camera angle 9 (feather falling): 49

SET BUILD AND LIGHTING DESIGN

SET BUILD AND LIGHTING DESIGN


Although our music video will all be shot in the studio, we need to design an entire human size bird cage. Once we had our meeting with Dan about our ideas and we had settled on the idea of the bird cage we had to get to work making it and helping to design it. We have got a lot of our ideas for the set from the 1992 Coco Channel advert that was set in Paris.

This is our studio and Lighting plan combined.

We also want a swing in our set that our lead singer will be on, much like a bird swing in a cage. We will decorate it with vines and flowers to add more atmosphere and make it more visual to the audience. We will also have some band sequences which will be shot in front of green screen and we will then later in post production, edit in a very out of focus living room, so it looks as though they are all in the bird cage in the living room.

For our lighting design we want to use a lot of warm lighting in order to create a homely feel and create the gold atmosphere of the lighting reflecting off the gold bars of the cage. This lighting will also give our white feathers a gold like tint to them.

CAMERA TEST

Camera testing is one of the most important parts of filming. In order for our pop video to work we need to have the right people. And this is why it is important to camera test. As some people work on camera whereas others don’t. Many actors for years have had a ‘something’ on screen which is indescribable, they have a presence that can dominate an entire screen when put on camera. Actors such as James Dean, Marlon Brando, Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe or Grace Kelly. Or some modern day actors such as Jack Nicholson, Johnny Depp or Meryl Streep and Angelina Jolie all have great screen precence which is indescribable.

STORYBOARDING

STORYBOARDING

The storyboard is the plan that you will use to. If it works on paper that makes it a lot less expensive than to waste time on shooting on camera for hours if not days. The storyboards works out the type of shots that we will use, the camera angles, the camera movements, mise en scene, the colours and shapes, and how the picture composition rules will be applied in the film.

Our storyboarding really helped us to bring our music video together, it helped us to get a clear picture of what shots we needed where, the timing of them and it helped us to create strong visuals in our video. We were able to see the shots we wanted and work out the cuts that we wanted. We had to think about the angles and timings of each shot.

We have used lots of close ups in our storyboard in order to emphasise people and there instruments. As our song has some very slow bits and then some fast bits, we have used our storyboards to show the fast cutting bits from peoples faces to their instruments and we have decided to film bits of the song extremely fast to then be able to put it into slow motion in our editing yet still have her singing in time.
A tracking shot that we have storyboarded is a shot that begins with a close up of our lead singer’s mouth the camera then slowly tracks back to reveal her eyes and then the rest of her face. This camera movement helps the audience to feel involved and part of the shot, it gives them a sense of intimacy with the action that takes place.

We have used a lot of fast cutting shots in order to create action and excitement and to keep our audience intrigued throughout. We also have a ‘dance’ sequence which is based on a band called OKGO, this sequence will take a lot of editing as it will have a lot of slow-motion, fast cuts and movement. The band will jump from one are to the next using fast cutting.

This is an image of a stroyboarder at work. Storyboarding takes time and percision. Artists have been storyboarding since the early 1930s and one of the first films to have been completly storyboarded was 'Gone With the Wind'. Storyboarding can become extreamly tediouse and takes a lot of time and effort. The image below on the right is an eight minuet animated cartoon strip. It has over 70 detailed images and probably took hours to draw and it is only worth 8 minuets of film.

I looked at this seminar by Steven Spielberg on how to storyboard and we have learnt and been influenced greatly by it for our storyboard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBH89Y0Xj7c&feature=related

TIMELINE

TIMELINE

A time line is used for creating a first try at putting the lyrics of the song together with the music and times in the song. This helps us to see what will work and what wont. We are able to get a ruff outline of our shots before we begin storyboarding.

An example of what did not work when we created our timeline was the length of some of our shots, our timeline helped us to realise that some of our shots were too long and that they needed to be quick, short and fast cutting in order to create pace and excitement in our video.

A different example of what really worked when we used our time line was our tracking shots, as these depend on our timing of the shots. We needed to be able to know how long to stay in a tight shot for in order to track out with the right timing and to then cut on to another shot.

We then began to build on our timeline by creating our storyboards.These helped us to have a clearer understanding of what types of shots we wanted and how it would all work and come together.

COMPOSITION RULES - FILM MAKING

Composition rules can be applied to all art forms in life as they are what make up an effective images or series of moving images such as film shots. There are over a hundred different rules of composition for film making and people spend years studying them and their effects on film. Here are the most well known and necessary ones:

Different types of Shot Size
-Close Ups, are used very often in film as they allow the audience to feel intermit with the actors and feel involved with the scene. Close ups are used to portray emotion and detail. In music videos close ups can be used to put an emphasis on different things such as the hands playing an instrument or the eyes of the lead singer.
- Mid Shots are used when the camera wants to be close to the subject but not so close that you are unable to distinguish what is in the shot. A mid shot may be used to film the face and head to portray expression.
- Long Shots are used often when there is a lot of action going on, this shot enables the audience to see what is going on, if there was a fight taking place the audience would be close enough top be involved but further away enough to see the whole scene play out.
- Extreme Long Shots or Establishing shots are used to set a time or place and to establish where a scene is, they will often give the audience a view of the surroundings to enable to show them where they are.

Camera Position and Angle
- Low angled shots can say a lot about a character. Shots like this let the audience know that this character has a higher status and that they are possibly arrogant, powerful or a ‘hero’.
- High angled shots make the subject or person look inferior as we as an audience are looking down on them, it makes them seem powerless and weak.
- Flat on angled camera can make the subject look boring as there is no depth of field or shadows to the person.

Camera Movement
- Tracking shots are used all the time throughout filming, it tells the audience subconsciously more than we realise about a character. Tracking shots that move from left to right can often let the audience know that the person who is being filmed is good, as it is natural for our eyes to read from left to right where as a tracking shot that moves from right to left can tell us that that person is bad as they have entered from the right side of the screen which is not the natural direction that our eyes look from.
- Crane shots are used regularly throughout filming as they allow the audience to get a sense of space and movement in the camera. Crane shots can often be used when a camera swoops over a certain area and then moves in on the character. Crane shots can also be used as establishing shots or to create angled shots.

Lighting
- Lighting is used to create effects or set a theme or mood in filming. It also tells us a lot about a character in a film, for example dark lighting with shadows may suggest mysterious and bad where as lots of backlighting as well as spot lighting can create a halo effect on a character and give them a very angelic look. It can completely change an emotion or a time of day in filming. There are a few essential lights that will almost always be used in filming which are a spot light, fill light and back light. These are essential at times as they enable the audience to see what is happening and who the characters are.

Rule of Thirds

- - The rule of thirds can be applied to all forms of art, it is when an image or shot is broken up into 9 parts in thirds with certain ‘hot spots’ that lead the eye around the image or shot. People may be placed on these hot spots to draw attention to them, a shot is set up so that the eye reads across the rule of thirds. If the rule is broken and a person or object is placed off one of the hot spots it will most likely be for a reason, our eye is naturally drawn to one of the hot spots so when something is placed off of one of the hot spots the audience subconsciously makes a decision about that character or person letting us know that they are rebellious, quirky or bad.

Colours
- Colours say a lot more about a person or a set than people realise. Even the colours of lighting play a huge part in setting an atmosphere or a mood for something. Clothing can let an audience know a lot about a certain character for example the classic white clothing for good and black for evil. Yet other colours say so much more. If you wanted to portray an image of an energetic and exciting band you may dress them in reds, yellows or oranges as these colours are alert minded, outgoing, physical, active, creative, sociable with sunny or bright ideas, but if you wanted to create a band which has calming influences and is more relaxed you may use blues, purples, browns and turquoises to give off a more peaceful atmosphere with softer influences.

Shapes and Lines
- Shapes and lines are another thing that can say a lot about your band or the characters in your scene as they create a mood, horizontal lines are more relaxed lines where as vertical lines a harsher and more direct, diagonal lines can be used to create an atmosphere of action and movement. So if you add all of the rules and elements together such as the colours, lighting, lines and camera angles and movements you can tell the audience so much about a person or a group without saying anything.

FIRST PITCH

Our first pitch to Luke, a media teacher went well. We arrived with a lot of ideas that were not all set in stone. Each of them had extremely drastic and un naturalistic ideas about them. So Luke helped us to come to our final decision, which was when we decided to do Bird Song by Florence and the machine. We told him that we wanted to surround the video around the idea of having a façade in everything. The idea is about a young girl who lives in the perfect suburban neighbourhood, whose life seems perfect and one day as she is outside she begins to hear a bird singing about what she has done and so she takes it into her house to kill it. When we see the inside of what we thought was a perfect house we see and old, run down, destroyed, dirty, grimy house that she lives in. echoing the idea that things are not what they seem. Luke wanted us to improve on the narrative of the video and to also add to the performance because at some time we needed to add the band into the video with the lead singer who also plays the lead in the video.

RESEARCHING MY PRODUCTION

I have been looking a lot into the research of the few songs we have been looking at I have been looking at the different target audiences for each song, and each one is very different to the other. I think that ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ will appeal to the largest target audience, from the ages of 10 – 40 which is a massive target audience. I think that younger audience may not really understand the idea of the song but it will be very colourful and entertaining for them, then teenagers to early 20s will appreciate it for different reasons such as the topic and lyrics and the strangeness of the video, then older audiences from 30s - 40s will appreciate this video as they will all know the song as it is one of the most well known songs in the world even now, 40 years later. I also think that the song Landslide will appeal to older audiences as it was a very popular song in the 1970s its target audience is about 16 – 35 the younger audience may appreciate the video for its portrayal of things that happen now. ‘Do you Realize’ will appeal to a target audience from the age of 16 -29 as this is the most common target audience that listen to music and I think that the video will interest people of that age and intelligence.


We viewed various different pop videos in order to influence our ideas and give us a better understanding into the world of music videos. One of the videos we watched was the Lilly Allen song ‘Alfie’ this music video features Lilly Allen singing her song about her brother who is a puppet in the music video, the world and house that they live in is very cartoon like and strangely perfect, much like the neighbourhood from Tim Burtons ‘Edward Scissorhands’ and I think that the visuals in this pop video influenced Gabby in her ideas for her pop videos. We also looked at Nsync, and explored the ideas of a stereotypical boy band image and the target audience for that type of band. We looked at Kylie Monogue and how her image has changed over the years in order for her to still be a success, and this shows us that in order to sell your song or video you should be able to appeal to the main target audience, which is 12 – 29. I think that each one of these pop videos influenced people in different ways and we were all able to take some ideas from these videos. We also learnt that it’s not always necessary to have a narrative to have a successful pop video.

- I have three very different ideas to the people in my group, my first and favourite idea is to do a cover of The Beatles song ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ but I want the song to have a solo artist instead of a band. I want the visuals for this pop video to be very colourful and to be able to create a dreamlike world. The song will begin with the artist standing in a very naturalistic, surreal and dull world he will then take a pill of some drug and the dull world around him will begin to melt and it will become this dreamlike world full of colour and non naturalistic elements. The main artist will start singing and he will then see a girl (Lucy) and begin to follow her around this colourful world but the harder he tries to get to her the further she moves away he eventually follows her to this train station as the last verse of the song has the lyrics, “Picture yourself on a train in a station, With plasticine porters with looking glass ties. Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile, The girl with kaleidoscope eyes.” The girl then looks at him and the falls in front of the train. The sound then stops and the camera goes to a birdseye view of the singer standing alone and we realise that the girl was just an illusion and a figment of his imagination.

- My second idea is a Stevie Nicks song called “Landslide” which will also be a song with a solo artist that will be a homeless women sitting on the pavement outside a station, she lives on the pavement and everyday she sees the same people walking along the road going off to work or school, or people meeting and then breaking up she watches the world go by and no one ever really notices her, the whole world rushes by and eventually toward the end of the song someone drops a coin into her hat and the people who are constantly rushing by on fast forward suddenly stop and she then gets up and walks off. The song then fades out.

- My third idea is a video for the Flaming Lips song “Do you realize” this song has some incredible lyrics and I want to create a very literal video that will coincide with the lyrics some which are, “Do You Realize - we're floating in space - Do You Realize - that happiness makes you cry. Do You Realize - that everyone you know someday will die. You realize the sun doesn't go down. It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round” The song will feature a band of four men from the ages of 24 – 27 who will be playing the song in an empty basement and then the video will cut between the band and these images that will be filmed almost imperfectly in a ‘home video’ type style the song will then end with an image of the world form space.

The discussion and pitch of my ideas to the group went very well, Gaby and Heather are both very different people with very different likes and dislikes which made the pitch very interesting, but although they are almost each a completely separate target audience they both liked my ideas especially the ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ as I think they both found it very interesting and extremely visual I also think they thought that it may be a good challenge to create as it is quite complicated to film and make. John also liked my idea for ‘Landslide’ as I think he thought that the visuals would be very good and the narrative would be relatively simple and that we could shoot some very creative and interesting shots.

The Five Stages of Production

The Five Stages of production

There are five stages; these are: Research and Development, Pre Production, Production, Post Production, Distribution and Exhibition.

- Research and development
For the research and development of our pop video we will research the target audiences for each video by identifying them by age, gender, social class and likes and dislikes. We will also be looking at other pop videos that target the same audience as we need to know our competition and their ideas


- Pre production
The pre production of our video will be the part that will most like take up most of our time but be very vital to our video as the more organised we are before hand will then make our shoot day much easier. We will make a full call sheet which will entail a full list of our cast, locations, people on set, props, wardrobe, makeup and anything extra. We will also confirm our cast before hand and sort out our location and any necessary permission we need to film there.

In our development we will need to do a cast and camera test to make sure our cast fits our requirements for our video. As most of our ideas our very visual we will spend some time doing a full storyboard with animatics so as to be able to get a grasp on the visuals that we will see on screen. Once we have pitched our idea to our film teacher we will need to go through the practicalities and things that we will be capable of doing to then turn our idea into a reality.

- Post Production
Our post production can be just as important as the shoot day as a good edit and the precision is what will make our video that much better and make all the difference. We will be editing one or two lesson a week after our shoot day and during any of our free time.

- Distribution and Exhibition
Distribution and Exhibition is what will make our video more public and so things we will need to look at will be established T.V stations, internet sites such as Facebook or My Space and any other publicity that we can get such as word of mouth, posters and more. We will need to advertise in a way that will intercept with our target audience in order for them to take notice.