Class exercise (Drawing Silhouettes)

In class Rohan got us to all draw a picture of something and fill it in with a textar to create a silhouette. He taught us that this was a quick and easy way to  visualise the kind of scene you have in your mind. It actually took me quite a while to finish that picture but when it was done it did help a lot in clearing the image that was vaguely imagined only in my head, now i have a sense of proportion and distance of the each of the objects so i know how it would be shot in reality.

To briefly explain a little about the drawing, firstly i drew a hand by tracing the shadow of my actual hand then added long exaggerated finger nails and added a diamond ring. The huge diamond on the hand reminded me of power so i wanted to draw something of the opposite, which is the weak so i drew a man on his knees in a pool of blood with his head cut off. I realised that i am a very dramatic person. I probably don’t show it as much but the way my mind works is very extra.

What i found silhouettes were good for : windows, side profiles, shadows and objects that have a defined shape.

Music Videos used to be my thing, i could watch one after another for hours and not get bored. As a child, i used to get up early on a Sunday morning to watch Rage or whatever music video program it was airing in Australia that time and was so mesmerised by them. Then when i moved to Korea, i was even more hooked with music videos of K-pop artists with their overly flamboyant visuals and performances. This below is one of the most memorable music videos i have watched as a child in Korea. It was released in 2003 and was performed by the super diva Lee Hyori (Korean Beyonce). This is when i discovered my love for hiphop not just the music but the style and attitude as well. When this came out, i was in year 3 and the superstar in the mv became my idol. There are so many types of music videos and this one is the type that has no narrative and is solely about advertising the artist. It’s about the hair, makeup, fashion, the props cute guy and the choreography, not much acting is required. It’s about setting the mood and creating attractive visuals in consideration of colours. Now as i watch it again i see all the American references such as the broadway show ‘Cats’ background, using foreign actors and the hiphop ghetto setting with the cars. This was the best mv i remember from my childhood and what inspired me how to dress and dance like. Music Videos have the power to do that, making the audience idolise the artist and to admire how they look and what they do which is why i guess product placement and branding work so greatly in music videos.

Honestly i am so glad i took this studio because i have learnt so much about not only music videos but also working with others and what my weaknesses and strengths are. By producing the music video of Fresh Vibes and Regrets by NeuMark, I now know that it is possible for people who haven’t graduated uni yet can still produce something that is decent. Although there were some difficulties as it was our first time directing a music video, i think our group members were all very attentive which really helped and they were also already equipped with cameras and lenses so we didn’t have to be restricted to the one day school cameras booking. My group mates being very devotional towards this project was what made the project end so quickly.

I was allocated to be the director of the show because i was the one who suggested the concept in the first place but i didn’t know i was taking over that role until the night before the actual shooting which was really difficult for me to whip up a shortlist in such short time. Therefore we had an unreadable shotlist that only i could read so when i was not present everything had to pause. I think i can improve on drawing a shotlist and communicating it better to everyone else so they understand each and every shots clearly. Another thing was that i was too polite to address the actors in the times that required yelling. As time went past during filming, the actors got closer to each other and with this undeniable chemistry between them they mucked around a lot.  It got more and more difficult to get them to focus and at the end our crew suffered because i wasn’t stern enough. I need to learn how to tell people what to do in a professional and serious way because i just got really frustrated with the people when they weren’t listening to me.

The most crucial thing about our music video is that we filmed all our footages in one day so we really didn’t have much time to get everything sorted and take our time with each and every shot. We just quickly went through each shots and moved along to the next location one after another. Since we didn’t have an abundant amount of time i felt pressured to rush all the shots which did not turned out perfectly. A lot of the shots were out of focus and later Even requested us to film more closeups of the water and spa. I also think it would be great to create a budget sheet before hand because although we had a rough one in mind, there were so many expenses that we missed so including the karaoke entry fee and food we had to buy for the actors, carpark ticket, and so much more…Im expecting at least 50dollars per person.

Overall it was a memorable experience for the first time directing a music video, and now i know my personality and my skills don’t really suite a director but more of a script writer.

The production of ‘Good Vibes and Regrets’ was undertaken on the 29th of November. There were two characters including NeuMark the male protagonist and Paula the female. The locations were at the spa, carpark, street which were all filmed in my docklands apartment and Kbox the karaoke place in the city. First we started off with a quick meeting where everyone were introduced to NeuMark aka Josh for the first time and gave a quick briefing of the script.

The first scene set in the spa was quite difficult because of the time constraint that we had, we quickly shot all the shots that we thought we absolutely needed such as the lip-syncing and some extreme closeups. What i didn’t think about here was that Jenny the camera operator had to constantly change lenses as we went from a long shot to an close up. So we tried to do all the long shots at once then the closeups together. In other locations we didn’t have any problem with time much except for then scene on the street where we had to take in consideration of the sunlight as we didn’t want the brightness to be inconsistent. When we arrived at the Karaoke it was already late night and everyone was tired so we tried to wrap up as quickly as possible. So when we shot the last scenes in Kbox, it was almost midnight.

After the one day of shooting we took a break from the whole project for roughly a week and a half to two weeks. Even who was in charge of the editing looked through all the footages and picked out the ones that she wanted to use then whipped up a 2minutes worth of preview to show the people. Although at the start we tried to incorporate the original storyline and flow as much as possible editing but it was too hard to translate our original ideas to Even and i think it held Even back on putting together a better set of footages than what i had in mind. Eventually we gave Even full freedom and control of editing the footages. She added the title sequence and put together everything. Grace helped with colour grading and audio tweeting at the start where Paula puts her earphones in and plays the song. Once everything was sort of in place we showed it to Rohan who gave us ideas and advice on how we can colour grade and make certain objects pop out of the shot.

We took on Rohan’s advice on filming some extra cutaway shots and also more of Paula. However we didn’t have Paula so i filled in for her although we have exactly different body types but they were extreme closeups so i don’t think the difference was very noticeable.

At the end we just colour graded all the shots that we needed and were just looking for outlets to upload it. We continued communicating with the artist even after the shooting and found out that he was planning to film another music video for that song so he didn’t want us to upload anywhere else but Youtube.

filming more environmental shots and working with the underwater camera. SO cool!!

me giving Even editing directions but not really working and complying to the classes’ and Rohan’s feedback.

and inspiration pretty little thing

Final cut Rohan’s tips on colour grading vignette, sharpening and adjusting the horizon line at the beginning shot. Changing the background for title scene.

Seeing the other groups rough cuts and what i thought about them.

Rohans feedback on ours.

On the day of the shooting, our group members arrived early and we went through the shot lists all together. We had a snack tray prepared for the actors and worked out the order of the locations we wanted to film.

It was a hot day and the shooting took place in the order of spa – carpark – street – karaoke.

Prior to our actual shoot we visited all our locations and checked out the exact position of the cameras we wanted to frame. Also got our actress to try on different outfits to see which fits her and the scene best. The picture below is our actress Paula in the out fit for the carpark scene. The simple white top and denim shorts, a classic look inspired by what Beyonce wore in the music video for Crazy in Love’.

Some of the challenges we faced were the natural sunlight being too bright, it was close to impossible to film a nice footage in the sun even with the exposure adjusted to the fullest, so it had to be filmed in the shades which was different from our vision. We moved around to find a good spot to film the street scene but eventually concluded to just film when the sun started setting and the sun ray wasn’t too intense.

We experimented with slow-motion at the spa and were really happy with the results. It was really cool to film in the water but we found it very restricting with other people sharing that area we had to be really quick and couldn’t really experiment with anything but i guess it was the only way to get it done.

Overall it was really good to meet the actress in advance and go through each scenes and also get her to try on all the clothes she would wear for each scene and also to be alert for any problems that might occur.

Our search for an actress for our music video. We posted on Facebook and heard from a couple of applicants which was really exciting!

Our description for the ad:

We are looking for women (aged 18-28) who fulfil these conditions: – not camera shy – desire to perform for camera – is comfortable with interacting with the opposite sex – provides headshot and body shot (so we know how she looks like) – has at least one project we can view digitally

The two applicants

Paula

Victoria

Showcast: http://www.showcast.com.au/showcast/View/ViewActorProfile?actorId=55426&FromLocation=7

Star now: http://www.starnow.com.au/victoriamantynen